THE 
REAL  MAN 


?RANCIS  LYNDE 


^    Ls'usisu^.        /        '         r*^L/  ls 


BOOKS  BY  FRANCIS  LYNDE 

Published  by  CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


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THE    REAL    MAN 


There  was  time  only  for  a  mighty  heave  and  shove. 

(Page  gs) 


The  Real  Man 


BY 

FRANCIS     LYNDE 


ILLUSTRATED  BY 

ARTHUR    E.    BECHER 


CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
NEW  YORK  ::::::::::  1915 


Copyright,  igis,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  August,  1915 


TO 


THOSE   FRIENDS    OF    UNACQUAINTANCE 

AMONG  HIS  READERS 

WHO    FROM    TIME    TO    TIME    EXPRESS,   THROUGH    THE    MEDIUM    OF 

KINDLY  AND   HEART-WARMING  LETTERS, 

THEER  APPRECIATIVE    SYMPATHY  AND  APPROVAL, 

THIS    BOOK 

IS  AFFECTIONATELY   INSCRIBED, 

WITH  GRATEFUL   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS  FROM 

THE  AUTHOR 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Host  and  Guest        i 

II.  Metastasis 13 

III.  The  Hobo 33 

IV.  The  High  Hills 54 

V.  The  Specialist 76 

VI.  The  Twig 89 

VII.  A  Notice  to  Quit 96 

VIII.  Timanyoni  Ditch 114 

IX.  Relapsings 124 

X.  The  Sick  Project 139 

XI.  When  Greek  Meets  Greek      .     .  158 

XII.  The  Rocket  and  the  Stick       .     .  168 

XIII.  The  Narrow  World 180 

XIV.  A  Reprieve       201 

XV.  "Sweet  Fortune's  Minion"      .     .  214 

vii 


Contents 


CIIAPTER 


PAGE 


XVI.  Broken  Threads       224 

XVII.  A  Night  of  Fiascos 240 

XVIII.  A  Chance  to  Hedge 255 

XIX.  Two  Women 264 

XX.  Tucker  Jibbey 282 

XXI.  At  Any  Cost 290 

XXII.  The  Megalomaniac        3°3 

XXIII.  The  Arrow  to  the  Mark     ...  317 

XXIV.  A  Little  Leaven 326 

XXV.  The  Pace-Setter 339 

XXVI.  The  Colonel's  "Defi"     ....  348 

XXVII.  Two  Witnesses 362 

XXVIII.  The  Straddler 372 

XXIX.  The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt     ...  379 

XXX.  A  Strong  Man  Armed       ....  394 

XXXI.  A  Race  to  the  Swift        ....  405 

XXXII.  Freedom        416 

XXXIII.  In  Sunrise  Gulch 432 


via 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

There  was  time  only  for  a  mighty  heave  and  shove 

Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

In  a  flash  Smith  knew  what  he  had  done       ....       30 

"Your  friends  have  money,  Montague — plenty  of  it"     390 

"Catch  him!  catch  him!"  he  shrilled.     "It's  Booger- 

field,  and  he's  going  to  dy-dynamite  the  dam!"  .     .     430 


Sketch  map  of  the  Timanyoni 


Sketch    map    of    the   Timanyo 


THE  REAL  MAN 

>    >       -  > 

;     . 

I  •       -    : 

Host  and  Guest 

IT  is  conceivable  that,  in  Noah's  time — say, 
on  the  day  before  the  heavens  opened  and 
the  floods  descended — a  complacent  citizenry  of 
Antediluvia  might  have  sat  out  on  its  front 
porches,  enjoying  the  sunset  over  Mount  Ararat 
and  speculating  upon  the  probable  results  of  the 
next  patriarchal  election,  all  unsuspicious  of 
chaotic  cataclysms.  Under  similar  conditions — 
fair  skies,  a  good  groundwork  of  creature  com- 
forts, and  a  total  lack  of  threatening  portents — 
there  was  no  reason  why  the  two  men,  smoking 
their  after-dinner  cigars  on  the  terrace  of  the 
Lawrenceville  Country  Club,  should  suspect  that 
the  end  of  the  world  might  be  lying  in  wait 
for  either  of  them  just  beyond  the  hour's  relax- 
ation. 

They   had    been    dining    together — Debritt,    a 
salesman  for  the  Aldenguild  Engraving  Company 


THE  REAL  MAN 


Host  and  Guest 

IT  is  conceivable  that,  in  Noah's  time — say, 
on  the  day  before  the  heavens  opened  and 
the  floods  descended — a  complacent  citizenry  of 
Antediluvia  might  have  sat  out  on  its  front 
porches,  enjoying  the  sunset  over  Mount  Ararat 
and  speculating  upon  the  probable  results  of  the 
next  patriarchal  election,  all  unsuspicious  of 
chaotic  cataclysms.  Under  similar  conditions — 
fair  skies,  a  good  groundwork  of  creature  com- 
forts, and  a  total  lack  of  threatening  portents — 
there  was  no  reason  why  the  two  men,  smoking 
their  after-dinner  cigars  on  the  terrace  of  the 
Lawrenceville  Country  Club,  should  suspect  that 
the  end  of  the  world  might  be  lying  in  wait 
for  either  of  them  just  beyond  the  hour's  relax- 
ation. 

They   had    been    dining    together — Debritt,    a 
salesman  for  the  Aldenguild  Engraving  Company 


The  Real  Man 

of  New  York  and  the  elder  of  the  two,  as  the 
guest,  and  Smith,  cashier  of  the  Lawrenceville 
Bank  and  Trust,  as  the  host.  After  banking 
hours,  Smith  had  taken  the  engraving  com- 
pany's salesman  in  his  runabout  for  a  drive 
through  the  residence  district  and  up  the  river 
road,  and  business,  the  business  of  printing  a 
new  issue  of  stock-certificates  for  the  local  bank, 
had  been  laid  aside.  The  return  drive  had  paused 
at  the  Country  Club  for  dinner;  and  since  De- 
britt's  train  would  not  leave  until  eight  o'clock, 
there  was  ample  leisure  for  the  tobacco  burning 
and  for  the  jocund  salesman's  appreciative 
enthusiasm. 

"Monty,  my  son,  for  solid  satisfaction  and 
pure  unadulterated  enjoyment  of  the  safe-and- 
sane  variety,  you  fellows  in  the  little  cities  have 
us  metropolitans  backed  off  the  map,"  he  said, 
after  the  cigars  were  fairly  alight.  "In  New 
York,  believe  me,  you  might  be  the  cashier  of  a 
bank  the  size  of  the  Lawrenceville  B.  and  T. — 
only  you  wouldn't  be  at  your  age — for  a  thou- 
sand years  and  never  get  a  glimpse  out  over  the 
top  of  things;  never  know  the  people  who  lived 
next  door  to  you.  Here  you  know  everybody 
worth  knowing,  drive  your  own  motor,  have  more 
dinner  invitations  than  you  can  accept,  and  by 


Host  and  Guest 

and  by — when  you  get  deliberately  good  and 
ready — you  can  marry  the  prettiest  girl  in  town. 
Ami  right?" 

The  carefully  groomed,  athletically  muscled 
younger  man  in  the  big  wicker  lounging-chair 
laughed  easily. 

"You  are  not  so  far  wrong,  Boswell,"  he  con- 
ceded. "I  guess  we  get  all  that  is  coming  to  us, 
and  I  get  my  share.  Since  we  have  only  one  multi- 
millionaire we  can't  afford  to  be  very  exclusive, 
and  my  bank  job  answers  the  social  purpose  well 
enough." 

"I'll  bet  it  does!"  the  jocose  one  went  on. 
"I've  been  piping  you  off  ever  since  we  left  the 
hotel.  It's  *  'lo,  Monty-boy, '  everywhere  you  go, 
and  I  know  exactly  what  that  means  in  a  town 
of  this  size;  a  stand-in  with  all  the  good  people, 
a  plate  at  anybody's  table,  the  pick  of  partners 
at  all  the  social  dew-dabs.    Tell  me  if  I'm  wrong." 

Again  the  younger  man  laughed. 

"You  might  be  reading  it  out  of  a  book,"  he 
confessed.  "That  is  the  life  here  in  Lawrence- 
ville,  and  I  live  it,  like  thousands  of  my  kind  all 
over  the  land.  You  may  scoff  at  it  if  you  like, 
but  it  is  pleasant  and  harmless  and  exceedingly 
comfortable.  I  shouldn't  know  how  to  live  any 
other  kind." 


The  Real  Man 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should  want  to  live 
any  other  kind,"  was  the  prompt  rejoinder.  "To 
be  a  rising  young  business  man  in  a  rich  little 
inland  city,  beloved  of  the  gods  and  goddesses — 
especially  of  the  goddesses.  .  .  .  Say,  by  Jove ! 
here  comes  one  of  them,  right  now.  Heavens ! 
isn't  she  a  pomegranate!" 

A  handsome  limousine  had  rolled  silently  up 
to  the  club  carriage  entrance,  and  the  young  wo- 
man in  question  was  descending  from  it.  Only  a 
miser  of  adjectives — or  a  Debritt — would  have 
tried  to  set  forth  her  triumphant  charm  in  a  single 
word.  She  was  magnificent:  a  brown-eyed  blonde 
of  the  Olympian  type,  exuberantly  feminine  in 
the  many  dazzling  luxuriances  of  ripe-lipped,  full- 
figured  maidenhood.  The  salesman  saw  his  com- 
panion make  a  move  to  rise,  but  the  beauty  passed 
on  into  the  club-house  without  looking  their  way. 

"You  know  her,  I  suppose;  you  know  every- 
body in  town,"  Debritt  said,  after  the  cashier  had 
again  settled  himself  in  the  lounging-chair. 

Smith's  nod  was  expressive  of  something  more 
than  a  fellow  townsman's  degree  of  intimacy. 

"I  ought  to,"  he  admitted.  "She  is  Miss  Verda 
Richlander,  the  daughter  of  our  one  and  only 
multimillionaire.  Also,  I  may  add  that  she  is  my 
very  good  friend." 


Host  and  Guest 

Debritt's  chuckling  laugh  proved  that  his  pre- 
figurings  had  already  outrun  the  mere  statement 
of  fact. 

"Better  and  more  of  it,"  he  commented.  "I'm 
going  to  congratulate  you  before  you  can  escape — 
or  is  it  a  bit  premature  I" 

"Some  of  the  Lawrenceville  gossips  would  tell 
you  that  it  isn't;  but  it  is,  just  the  same.  Mr. 
Josiah  Richlander  has  but  one  measure  for  the 
stature  of  a  man,  and  the  name  of  it  is  money. 
The  fellow  who  asks  him  for  Miss  Verda  is  going 
to  have  a  chance  to  show  up  his  bank-account 
and  the  contents  of  his  safety-deposit  box  in 
short  order." 

"In  that  case,  I  should  imagine  you'd  be  lying 
awake  nights  trying  to  study  up  some  get-rich- 
quick  scheme,"  joked  the  guest. 

"Perhaps  I  am,"  was  the  even-toned  rejoinder. 
"Who  knows?" 

The  round-bodied  salesman  broke  an  apprecia- 
tive cough  in  the  middle  and  grew  suddenly 
thoughtful. 

"Don't  do  that,  Monty,"  he  urged  soberly; 
"try  to  take  any  of  the  short  cuts,  I  mean.  It's 
the  curse  of  the  age;  and,  if  you'll  take  it  from 
me,  your  chances  are  too  good — and  too  dan- 
gerous." 

5 


The  Real  Man 

The  good-looking,  athletic  young  cash-keeper 
planted  in  the  opposite  chair  met  the  salesman's 
earnest  gaze  level-eyed. 

"Having  said  that  much,  you  can  hardly  refuse 
to  say  more,"  he  suggested. 

"I  will  say  more;  a  little  more,  anyway.  I've 
been  wanting  to  say  it  all  the  afternoon.  My  job 
takes  me  into  nearly  every  bank  in  the  Middle 
West,  as  you  know,  and  I  can't  very  well  help 
hearing  a  good  bit  of  gossip,  Montague.  I'm  not 
going  to  insult  your  intelligence  by  assuming  that 
you  don't  thoroughly  know  the  man  you  are  work- 
ing under." 

The  cashier  withheld  his  reply  until  the  Olym- 
pian young  woman,  who  was  coming  out,  had 
stepped  into  her  limousine  to  be  driven  away 
townward.     Then  he  said: 

"Mr.  Dunham — our  president?  Oh,  yes;  I 
know  him  very  well,  indeed." 

"I'm  afraid  you  don't." 

"I  ought  to  know  him,"  was  the  guarded  as- 
sumption. "I've  been  with  him  six  years,  and 
during  that  time  I  have  served  a  turn  at  every 
job  in  the  bank  up  to,  and  now  and  then  includ- 
ing, Mr.  Dunham's  own  desk." 

"Then  you  can  hardly  help  knowing  what 
people  say  of  him." 

6 


Host  and  Guest 

"I  know:  they  say  he  is  a  chance-taker,  and 
some  of  them  add  that  he  is  not  too  scrupulous. 
That  is  entirely  true;  true,  not  only  of  Mr.  Dun- 
ham, but  of  nine  out  of  every  ten  business  men  of 
to-day  who  make  a  success.  The  chance-taking 
is  in  the  air,  the  Lawrenceville  air,  at  any  rate, 
Debritt.  We  are  prosperous.  The  town  is  growing 
by  leaps  and  bounds,  and  we've  got  the  money." 

The  ash  had  grown  half  an  inch  longer  on  the 
salesman's  cigar  before  he  spoke  again. 

"They  say  worse  things  of  Mr.  Watrous  Dun- 
ham than  that  he  is  a  chance-taker,  Montague. 
There  are  men,  good,  solid  business  men,  in  the 
neighboring  cities  and  towns  who  tell  some  pretty 
savage  stories  about  the  way  in  which  he  has 
sometimes  dropped  his  friends  into  a  hole  to  save 
himself." 

"And  you  are  a  good  enough  friend  of  mine 
to  want  to  give  me  a  tip,  Boswell  ?  I  appreciate 
that,  but  I  don't  need  it.  It  may  be  as  you  say. 
Possibly  Mr.  Dunham  does  carry  a  knife  up  his 
sleeve  for  emergencies.  But  I  wasn't  born  yes- 
terday, and  I  have  a  few  friends  of  my  own  here 
in  Lawrenceville.  My  only  present  worry  is  that 
I'm  not  making  money  fast  enough." 

The  salesman  waved  the  subject  aside  with  the 
half-burned  cigar.     "Forget  it,"  he  said  shortly; 

7 


The  Real  Man 

"the  Dunham  end  of  it,  I  mean.  And  I  don't 
blame  you  for  wanting  to  assemble  money  enough 
to  call  Mr.  Richlander's  hand."  Then,  with  the 
jocose  smile  wrinkling  again  at  the  corners  of  his 
well-buried  eyes:  "You've  got  all  the  rest  of  it, 
you  know;  even  to  the  good  half  of  a  distinguished 
name.  'Mrs.  J.  Montague  Smith/  That  fits  her 
down  to  the  ground.  If  it  were  just  plain  'John/ 
now,  it  might  be  different.  Does  she,  too,  call 
you  'Monty-boy'  ?" 

The  young  man  whose  name  pointed  the  jest 
grinned  good-naturedly. 

"The  'J'  does  stand  for  'John,'"  he  admitted. 
"I  was  named  for  my  maternal  grandfather,  John 
Montague,  and  had  both  halves  of  the  good  old 
gentleman's  signature  wished  upon  me.  I  stood 
for  it  until  I  grew  old  enough  to  realize  that  'John 
Smith'  is  practically  nothing  but  an  alias,  and 
then  I  dropped  the  'John'  part  of  it,  or  rather, 
let  it  shrink  to  an  initial.  I  suppose  you  can 
count  all  the  Debritts  there  are  in  the  country 
on  your  fingers;  but  there  are  millions  of  indis- 
tinguishable Smiths." 

The  fat  salesman  was  chuckling  again  when  he 
threw  the  cigar  end  away  and  glanced  at  his 
watch. 

"I  don't  blame  you  for  parting  your  name  in 

8 


Host  and  Guest 

the  middle,"  he  said;  "I'd  have  done  it  myself, 
maybe.  But  if  you  should  ever  happen  to  need 
an  alias  you've  got  one  ready-made.  Just  drop 
the  'Montague'  and  call  yourself  'John'  and  the 
trick's  turned.  You  might  bear  that  in  mind. 
It'll  come  in  handy  if  the  big  ego  ever  happens  to 
get  hold  of  you." 

"The  big  what?" 

"The  big  ego;  the  German  philosophers'  'Ab- 
solute Ego,'  you  know." 

Smith  laughed.  "I  haven't  the  pleasure  of  the 
gentleman's  acquaintance.  I'm  long  on  com- 
mercial arithmetic  and  the  money  market;  long, 
again,  Lawrenceville  will  tell  you,  on  the  new 
dancing  steps  and  things  of  that  sort.  But  I've 
never  dabbled  much  in  the  highbrow  stuff." 

"It's  a  change,"  said  the  salesman,  willing  to 
defend  himself.  "I  read  a  little  now  and  then, 
just  to  get  away  from  the  commercial  grind.  The 
ego  theory  is  interesting.  It  is  based  on  the  idea 
that  no  man  is  altogether  the  man  he  thinks  he 
is,  or  that  others  think  he  is;  that  association, 
environment,  training,  taste,  inclination,  and  all 
those  things  have  developed  a  personality  which 
might  have  been  altogether  different  if  the  con- 
straining conditions  had  been  different.  Do  you 
get  that?" 


The  Real  Man 

"Perfectly.  If  I'd  been  brought  up  some  other 
way  I  might  have  been  cutting  meat  in  a  butcher's 
shop  instead  of  taking  bank  chances  on  more  or 
less  doubtful  notes  of  hand.  What's  the  next 
step  r 

"The  German  hair-splitters  go  a  little  farther 
and  ring  in  what  they  call  the  'Absolute  Ego,'  by 
which  they  mean  the  ego  itself,  unshackled  by 
any  of  these  conditions  which  unite  in  forming  the 
ordinary  personality.  They  say  that  if  these  con- 
ditions could  be  suddenly  swept  away  or  changed 
completely,  a  new  man  would  emerge,  a  man  no 
less  unrecognizable,  perhaps,  to  his  friends  than 
he  would  be  to  himself." 

"That's  rather  far-fetched,  don't  you  think?" 
queried  the  practical-minded  listener.  "I  can 
see  how  a  man  may  be  what  he  is  chiefly  because 
his  inherited  tastes  and  his  surroundings  and  his 
opportunities  have  made  him  so.  But  after  the 
metal  has  once  been  poured  in  the  mould  it's  fixed, 
isn  t  it  r 

Debritt  shook  his  head. 

"I'm  only  a  wader  in  the  edges  of  the  pool,  my- 
self," he  admitted.  "I  dabble  a  little  for  my  own 
amusement.  But,  as  I  understand  it,  the  theory 
presupposes  a  violent  smashing  of  the  mould  and 
a  remelting  of  the  metal.     Let  me  ask  you  some- 

10 


Host  and  Guest 

thing:  when  you  were  a  boy  did  you  mean  to 
grow  up  and  be  a  bank  cashier?" 

Smith  laughed.  "I  fully  intended  to  be  a  pirate 
or  a  stage-robber,  as  I  remember  it." 

"There  you  are,"  drawled  the  travelling  man. 
"The  theory  goes  on  to  say  that  in  childhood  the 
veil  is  thin  and  the  absolute  ego  shows  through. 
I'm  not  swallowing  the  thing  whole,  you  under- 
stand. But  in  my  own  experience  I've  seen  a 
good  man  go  hopelessly  into  the  discard,  and  a 
bad  one  turn  over  a  new  leaf  and  pull  up,  all  on 
account  of  some  sudden  earthquake  in  the  con- 
ditions. Call  it  all  moonshine,  if  you  like,  and 
let's  come  down  to  earth  again.  How  about  get- 
ting back  to  town  ?  Fd  be  glad  to  stay  here  for- 
ever, but  I'm  afraid  the  house  might  object. 
When  did  you  say  Mr.  Dunham  would  be  home  ?" 

"We  are  looking  for  him  to-morrow,  though 
he  may  be  a  day  or  two  late.  But  you  needn't 
worry  about  your  order,  if  that  is  what  is  troub- 
ling you.  I  happen  to  know  that  he  intends  giving 
the  engraving  of  the  new  stock-certificates  to 
your  people." 

The  New  York  salesman's  smile  had  in  it  the 
experience-taught  wisdom  of  all  the  ages. 

"Montague,  my  son,  let  me  pay  for  my  dinner 
with  a  saying  that  is  as  old  as  the  hills,  and  as 

II 


The  Real  Man 

full  of  meat  as  the  nuts  that  ripen  on  'em:  in 
this  little  old  round  world  you  have  what  you  have 
when  you  have  it.  This  evening  we've  enjoyed  a 
nice  little  five-course  dinner,  well  cooked  and  well 
served,  in  a  pretty  nifty  little  club,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  we'll  be  chasing  along  to  town  in  your 
private  buzz-wagon,  giving  our  dust  to  anybody 
who  wants  to  take  it.     Do  you  get  that  ?" 

"I  do.     But  what's  the  answer?" 

"The  answer  is  the  other  half  of  it.  This  time 
to-morrow  we  may  both  be  asking  for  a  hand- 
out, and  inquiring,  a  bit  hoarsely,  perhaps,  if  the 
walking  is  good.  That  is  just  how  thin  the  parti- 
tions are.  You  don't  believe  it,  of  course;  couldn't 
even  assume  it  as  a  working  hypothesis.  What 
could  possibly  happen  to  you  or  to  me  in  the  next 
twenty-four  hours  ?  Nothing,  nothing  on  top  of 
God's  green  earth  that  could  pitch  either  or  both 
of  us  over  the  edge,  you'd  say — or  to  Mr.  Dun- 
ham to  make  him  change  his  mind  about  the 
engraving  job.  Just  the  same,  I'll  drop  along 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  week  and  get  his  name 
signed  to  the  order  for  those  stock-certificates. 
Let's  go  and  crank  up  the  little  road-wagon.  I 
mustn't  miss  that  train." 


12 


II 

Metastasis 

IT  was  ten  minutes  of  eight  when  J.  Montague 
Smith,  having  picked  up  the  salesman's  sample 
cases  at  the  town  hotel,  set  Debritt  down  at  the 
railroad  station  and  bade  him  good-by.  Five 
minutes  later  he  had  driven  the  runabout  to  its 
garage  and  was  hastening  across  to  his  suite  of 
bachelor  apartments  in  the  Kincaid  Terrace. 
There  was  reason  for  the  haste.  Though  he  had 
been  careful,  from  purely  hospitable  motives,  to 
refrain  from  intimating  the  fact  to  Debritt,  it  was 
his  regular  evening  for  calling  upon  Miss  Verda 
Richlander,  and  time  pressed. 

The  New  York  salesman,  enlarging  enthusiasti- 
cally upon  the  provincial  beatitudes,  had  chosen  a 
fit  subject  for  their  illustration  in  the  young  cashier 
of  the  Lawrenceville  Bank  and  Trust.  From  his 
earliest  recollections  Montague  Smith  had  lived  the 
life  of  the  well-behaved  and  the  conventional.  He 
had  his  niche  in  the  Lawrenceville  social  structure, 
and  another  in  the  small-city  business  world,  and 
he  filled  both  to  his  own  satisfaction  and  to  the 

13 


The  Real  Man 

admiration  of  all  and  sundry.  Ambitions,  other 
than  to  take  promotions  in  the  bank  as  they  came 
to  him,  and,  eventually,  to  make  money  enough 
to  satisfy  the  demands  which  Josiah  Richlander 
might  make  upon  a  prospective  son-in-law,  had 
never  troubled  him.  An  extremely  well-balanced 
young  man  his  fellow  townsmen  called  him,  one 
of  whom  it  might  safely  be  predicted  that  he 
would  go  straightforwardly  on  his  way  to  re- 
putable middle  life  and  old  age;  moderate  in  all 
things,  impulsive  in  none. 

Even  in  the  affair  with  Miss  Richlander  sound 
common  sense  and  sober  second  thought  had  been 
made  to,  stand  in  the  room  of  supersentiment. 
Smith  did  not  know  what  it  was  to  be  violently 
in  love;  though  he  was  a  charter  member  of  the 
Lawrenceville  Athletic  Club  and  took  a  certain 
pride  in  keeping  himself  physically  fit  and  up  to 
the  mark,  it  was  not  his  habit  to  be  violent  in 
anything.  Lawrenceville  expected  its  young  men 
and  young  women  to  marry  and  "settle  down/' 
and  J.  Montague  Smith,  figuring  in  a  modest  way 
as  a  leader  in  the  Lawrenceville  younger  set,  was 
far  too  conservative  to  break  with  the  tradition, 
even  if  he  had  wished  to.  Miss  Richlander  was 
desirable  in  many  respects.  Her  father's  ample 
fortune   had   not   come   early   enough   or   rapidly 

14 


Metastasis 

enough  to  spoil  her.  In  moments  when  his  feel- 
ing for  her  achieved  its  nearest  approach  to  sen- 
timent the  conservative  young  man  perceived 
what  a  graciously  resplendent  figure  she  would 
make  as  the  mistress  of  her  own  house  and  the 
hostess  at  her  own  table. 

Arrived  at  his  rooms  in  the  Kincaid,  Smith 
snapped  the  switch  of  the  electrics  and  began  to 
lay  out  his  evening  clothes,  methodically  and 
with  a  careful  eye  to  the  spotlessness  of  the  shirt 
and  the  fresh  immaculacy  of  the  waistcoat.  There 
were  a  number  of  little  preliminaries  to  the  change; 
he  made  the  preparations  swiftly  but  with  a 
certain  air  of  calm  deliberation,  inserting  the  but- 
tons in  the  waistcoat,  choosing  hose  of  the  proper 
thinness,  rummaging  a  virgin  tie  out  of  its  box  in 
the  top  dressing-case  drawer. 

It  was  in  the  search  for  the  tie  that  he  turned 
up  a  mute  reminder  of  his  nearest  approach  to 
any  edge  of  the  real  chasm  of  sentiment:  a  small 
glove,  somewhat  soiled  and  use- worn,  with  a  tiny 
rip  in  one  of  the  fingers.  It  had  been  a  full 
year  since  he  had  seen  the  glove  or  its  owner, 
whom  he  had  met  only  once,  and  that  entirely 
by  chance.  The  girl  was  a  visitor  from  the  West, 
the  daughter  of  a  ranchman,  he  had  understood; 
and  she  had  been  stopping  over  with  friends  in  a 

15 


The  Real  Man 

neighboring  town.  Smith  had  driven  over  one 
evening  in  his  runabout  to  make  a  call  upon  the 
daughters  of  the  house,  and  had  found  a  lawn- 
party  in  progress,  with  the  Western  visitor  as  the 
guest  of  honor. 

Acquaintance — such  an  acquaintance  as  can  be 
achieved  in  a  short  social  hour — had  followed, 
and  the  sight  of  the  small  glove  reminded  him 
forcibly  of  the  sharp  little  antagonisms  that  the 
hour  had  developed.  At  all  points  the  bewitch- 
ing young  woman  from  the  barbaric  wildernesses, 
whose  dropped  glove  he  had  surreptitiously  picked 
up  and  pocketed,  had  proved  to  be  a  mocking 
critic  of  the  commonplace  conventions,  and  had 
been  moved  to  pillory  the  same  in  the  person  of 
her  momentary  entertainer.  Smith  had  recalled 
his  first  tasting  of  a  certain  French  liqueur  with 
perfume  in  it,  and  the  tingling  sense  of  an  awaken- 
ing of  some  sort  running  through  his  veins  as  an 
after  effect  not  altogether  pleasant,  but  vivifying 
to  a  degree.  Some  similar  thrillings  this  young 
person  from  the  wide  horizons  had  stirred  in  him 
— which  was  his  only  excuse  for  stealing  her  glove. 

Though  he  was  far  enough  from  recognizing 
it  as  such,  the  theft  had  been  purely  sentimen- 
tal. A  week  later,  when  he  would  have  courted 
a  return  of  the  thrills,  he  had  learned  that  she 

16 


Metastasis 

had  gone  back  to  her  native  wilds.  It  was  al- 
together for  the  best,  he  had  told  himself  at  the 
time,  and  at  other  times  during  the  year  which 
now  intervened.  Perfumed  liqueurs  are  not  for 
those  whose  tastes  and  habits  are  abstemious  by 
choice;  and  there  remained  now  nothing  of  the 
clashing  encounter  at  the  lawn-party  save  the 
soiled  glove,  a  rather  obscure  memory  of  a  face 
too  piquant  and  attractive  to  be  cheapened  by 
the  word  "pretty";  these  and  a  thing  she  had 
said  at  the  moment  of  parting:  "Yes;  I  am 
going  back  home  very  soon.  I  don't  like  your 
smug  Middle-West  civilization,  Mr.  Smith — it 
smothers  me.  I  don't  wonder  that  it  breeds  men 
who  live  and  grow  up  and  die  without  ever  having 
a  chance  to  find  themselves." 

He  was  recalling  that  last  little  thrust  and  smil- 
ing reminiscently  over  it  as  he  replaced  the  glove 
among  its  fellow  keepsakes:  handkerchief  boxes, 
tie-holders,  and  what  not,  given  him  on  birthdays 
and  Christmases  by  the  home-town  girls  who  had 
known  him  from  boyhood.  Some  day,  perhaps, 
he  would  tell  Verda  Richlander  of  the  sharp- 
tongued  little  Western  beauty.  Verda — and  all 
sensible  people — would  smile  at  the  idea  that  he, 
John  Montague  Smith,  was  of  those  who  had  not 
"found"    themselves,    or    that    the    finding — by 

17 


The  Real  Man 

which  he  had  understood  the  Western  young 
woman  to  mean  something  radical  and  upsetting — 
could  in  any  way  be  forced  upon  a  man  who  was 
old  enough  and  sane  enough  to  know  his  own 
lengths  and  breadths  and  depths. 

He  had  closed  the  drawer  and  was  stripping  off 
his  coat  to  dress  when  he  saw  that,  in  entering 
the  room  in  the  dark,  he  had  overlooked  two 
letters  which  had  evidently  been  thrust  under 
the  door  during  his  absence  with  Debritt.  One 
of  the  envelopes  was  plain,  with  his  name  scrib- 
bled on  it  in  pencil.  The  other  bore  a  typewritten 
address  with  the  card  of  the  Westfall  Foundries 
Company  in  its  upper  left-hand  corner.  Smith 
opened  Carter  Westfall's  letter  first  and  read  it 
with  a  little  twinge  of  shocked  surprise,  as  one 
reads  the  story  of  a  brave  battle  fought  and  lost. 

"Dear  Monty,"  it  ran.  "I  have  been  trying 
to  reach  you  by  'phone  off  and  on  ever  since  the 
adjournment  of  our  stockholders'  meeting  at 
three  o'clock.  We,  of  the  little  inside  pool,  have 
got  it  where  the  chicken  got  the  axe.  Richlander 
had  more  proxies  up  his  sleeve  than  we  thought 
he  had,  and  he  has  put  the  steam-roller  over  us 
to  a  finish.  He  was  able  to  vote  fifty-five  per  cent 
of  the  stock  straight,  and  you  know  what  that 

18 


Metastasis 

means:  a  consolidation  with  the  Richlander 
foundry  trust,  and  the  hearse  and  white  horses 
for  yours  truly  and  the  minority  stockholders. 
We're  dead — dead  and  buried. 

"Of  course,  I  stand  to  lose  everything,  but  that 
isn't  all  of  it.  I'm  horribly  anxious  for  fear  you'll 
be  tangled  up  personally  in  some  way  in  the  matter 
of  that  last  loan  of  $100,000  that  I  got  from 
the  Bank  and  Trust.  You  will  remember  you 
made  the  loan  while  Dunham  was  away,  and  I 
am  certain  you  told  me  you  had  his  consent  to 
take  my  Foundries  stock  as  collateral.  That  part 
of  it  is  all  right,  but,  as  matters  stand,  the  stock 
isn't  worth  the  paper  it  is  printed  on,  and — well, 
to  tell  the  bald  truth,  I'm  scared  of  Dunham. 
Brickley,  the  Chicago  lawyer  they  have  brought 
down  here,  tells  me  that  your  bank  is  behind  the 
consolidation  deal,  and  if  that  is  so,  there  is  going 
to  be  a  bank  loss  to  show  up  on  my  paper,  and 
Dunham  will  carefully  cover  his  tracks  for  the 
sake  of  the  bank's  standing. 

"It  is  a  hideous  mess,  and  it  has  occurred  to 
me  that  Dunham  can  put  you  in  bad,  if  he  wants 
to.  When  you  made  that  $100,000  loan,  you 
forgot — and  I  forgot  for  the  moment — that  you 
own  ten  shares  of  Westfall  Foundries  in  your  own 
name.     If  Dunham  wants  to  stand  from  under, 

19 


The  Real  Man 

this  might  be  used  against  you.  You  must  get 
rid  of  that  stock,  Monty,  and  do  it  quick.  Trans- 
fer the  ten  shares  to  me,  dating  the  transfer  back 
to  Saturday.  I  still  have  the  stock  books  in  my 
hands,  and  I'll  make  the  entry  in  the  record  and 
date  it  to  fit.  This  may  look  a  little  crooked,  on 
the  surface,  but  it's  your  salvation,  and  we  can't 
stop  to  split  hairs  when  we've  just  been  shot  full 
of  holes. 

"Westfall." 

Smith  folded  the  letter  mechanically  and  thrust 
it  into  his  pocket.  Carter  Westfall  was  his  good 
friend,  and  the  cashier  had  tried,  unofficially,  to 
dissuade  Westfall  from  borrowing  after  he  had  ad- 
mitted that  he  was  going  to  use  the  money  in  an 
attempt  to  buy  up  the  control  of  his  own  com- 
pany's stock.  As  Smith  took  up  the  second 
envelope  he  was  not  thinking  of  himself,  or  of 
the  possible  danger  hinted  at  in  Westfall's  warn- 
ing. The  big  bank  loss  was  the  chief  thing  to  be 
considered — that  and  the  hopeless  ruin  of  a  good 
fellow  like  Carter  Westfall.  He  was  thinking  of 
both  when  he  tore  the  second  envelope  across  and 
took  out  the  enclosed  slip  of  scratch-paper.  It 
was  a  note  from  the  president  and  it  was  dated 
within   the   hour.      Mr.    Dunham   had   evidently 

20 


Metastasis 

anticipated  his  itinerary.  At  all  events,  he  was 
back  in  Lawrenceville,  and  the  note  had  been 
written  at  the  bank.  It  was  a  curt  summons; 
the  cashier  was  wanted,  at  once. 

At  the  moment,  Smith  did  not  connect  the 
summons  with  the  Westfall  cataclysm,  or  with 
any  other  untoward  thing.  Mr.  Watrous  Dun- 
ham had  a  habit  of  dropping  in  and  out  unex- 
pectedly. Also,  he  had  the  habit  of  sending  for 
his  cashier  or  any  other  member  of  the  banking 
force  at  whatever  hour  the  notion  seized  him. 
Smith  went  to  the  telephone  and  called  up  the 
Richlander  house.  The  promptness  with  which 
the  multimillionaire's  daughter  came  to  the 
'phone  was  an  intimation  that  his  ring  was  not 
entirely  unexpected. 

"This  is  Montague,"  he  said,  when  Miss  Rich- 
lander's  mellifluous  "Main  four  six  eight — Mr. 
Richlander's  residence"  came  over  the  wire. 
Then:  "What  are  you  going  to  think  of  a 
man  who  calls  you  up  merely  to  beg  off"?"  he 
asked. 

Miss  Richlander's  reply  was  merciful  and  he 
was  permitted  to  go  on  and  explain.  "I'm  awfully 
sorry,  but  it  can't  very  well  be  helped,  you  know. 
Mr.  Dunham  has  returned,  and  he  wants  me  at 
the  bank.     I'll  be  up  a  little  later  on,  if  I  can 

21 


The  Real  Man 

break  away,  and  you'll  let  me  come.  .  .  .  Thank 
you,  ever  so  much.     Good-by." 

Having  thus  made  his  peace  with  Miss  Rich- 
lander,  Smith  put  on  his  street  coat  and  hat  and 
went  to  obey  the  president's  summons.  The  Law- 
renceville  Bank  and  Trust,  lately  installed  in  its 
new  marble-veneered  quarters  in  the  town's  first — 
seven-storied — sky-scraper,  was  only  four  squares 
distant;  two  streets  down  and  two  across.  As 
he  was  approaching  the  sky-scraper  corner,  Smith 
saw  that  there  were  only  two  lights  in  the  bank, 
one  in  the  vault  corridor  and  another  in  the  railed- 
off  open  space  in  front  which  held  the  president's 
desk  and  his  own.  Through  the  big  plate-glass 
windows  he  could  see  Mr.  Dunham.  The  presi- 
dent was  apparently  at  work,  his  portly  figure 
filling  the  padded  swing-chair.  He  had  one  elbow 
on  the  desk,  and  the  fingers  of  the  uplifted  hand 
were  thrust  into  his  thick  mop  of  hair. 

Smith  had  his  own  keys  and  he  let  himself  in 
quietly  through  the  door  on  the  side  street.  The 
night-watchman's  chair  stood  in  its  accustomed 
place  in  the  vault  corridor,  but  it  was  empty. 
To  a  suspicious  person  the  empty  chair  might 
have  had  its  significance;  but  Montague  Smith 
was  not  suspicious.  The  obvious  conclusion  was 
that  Mr.  Dunham  had  sent  the  watchman  forth 

22 


Metastasis 

upon  some  errand;  and  the  motive  needed  not 
to  be  tagged  as  ulterior. 

Without  meaning  to  be  particularly  noiseless, 
Smith — rubber  heels  on  tiled  floor  assisting — was 
unlatching  the  gate  in  the  counter-railing  before  his 
superior  officer  heard  him  and  looked  up.  There 
was  an  irritable  note  in  the  president's  greeting. 

"Oh,  it's  you,  at  last,  is  it  ?"  he  rasped.  "You 
have  taken  your  own  good  time  about  coming. 
It's  a  half-hour  and  more  since  I  sent  that  note 
to  your  room." 

Smith  drew  out  the  chair  from  the  stenog- 
rapher's table  and  sat  down.  Like  the  cashiers 
of  many  little-city  banks,  he  was  only  a  salaried 
man,  and  the  president  rarely  allowed  him  to 
forget  the  fact.  None  the  less,  his  boyish  gray 
eyes  were  reflecting  just  a  shade  of  the  militant 
antagonism  in  Mr.  Watrous  Dunham's  when  he 
said:  "I  was  dining  at  the  Country  Club  with  a 
friend,  and  I  didn't  go  to  my  rooms  until  a  few 
minutes  ago." 

The  president  sat  back  in  the  big  mahogany 
swing-chair.  His  face,  with  the  cold,  protrusive 
eyes,  the  heavy  lips,  and  the  dewlap  lower  jaw, 
was  the  face  of  a  man  who  shoots  to  kill. 

"I  suppose  you've  heard  the  news  about 
Westfall?" 

23 


The  Real  Man 

Smith  nodded. 

"Then  you  also  know  that  the  bank  stands  to 
lose  a  cold  hundred  thousand  on  that  loan  you 
made  him  ?" 

The  young  man  in  the  stenographer's  chair 
knew  now  very  well  why  the  night-watchman 
had  been  sent  away.  He  felt  in  his  pocket  for  a 
cigar  but  failed  to  find  one.  It  was  an  unconscious 
effort  to  gain  time  for  some  little  readjustment 
of  the  conventional  point  of  view.  The  presi- 
dent's attitude  plainly  implied  accusation,  and 
Smith  saw  the  solid  foundations  of  his  small 
world — the  only  world  he  had  ever  known — 
crumbling  to  a  threatened  dissolution. 

"You  may  remember  that  I  advised  against 
the  making  of  that  loan  when  Westfall  first  spoke 
of  it,"  he  said,  after  he  had  mastered  the  pre- 
monitory chill  of  panic.  "It  was  a  bad  risk — for 
him  and  for  us." 

"I  suppose  you  won't  deny  that  the  loan  was 
made  while  I  was  away  in  New  York,"  was  the 
challenging  rejoinder. 

"It  was.  But  you  gave  your  sanction  before 
you  went  East." 

The  president  twirled  his  chair  to  face  the  ob- 
jector and  brought  his  palm  down  with  a  smack 
upon  the  desk-slide. 

24 


Metastasis 

"No!"  he  stormed.  "What  I  told  you  to  do 
was  to  look  up  his  collateral;  and  you  took  a 
snap  judgment  and  let  him  have  the  money  1 
Westfall  is  your  friend,  and  you  are  a  stockholder 
in  his  bankrupt  company.  You  took  a  chance  for 
your  own  hand  and  put  the  bank  in  the  hole. 
Now  I'd  like  to  ask  what  you  are  going  to  do 
about  it." 

Smith  looked  up  quickly.  Somewhere  inside 
of  him  the  carefully  erected  walls  of  use  and 
custom  were  tumbling  in  strange  ruins  and  out 
of  the  debris  another  structure,  formless  as  yet, 
but  obstinately  sturdy,  was  rising. 

"I  am  not  going  to  do  what  you  want  me  to 
do,  Mr.  Dunham — step  in  and  be  your  convenient 
scapegoat,"  he  said,  wondering  a  little  in  his  inner 
recesses  how  he  was  finding  the  sheer  brutal  man- 
courage  to  say  such  a  thing  to  the  president  of 
the  Lawrenceville  Bank  and  Trust.  "I  suppose 
you  have  reasons  of  your  own  for  wishing  to  shift 
the  responsibility  for  this  particular  loss  to  my 
shoulders.  But  whether  you  have  or  haven't,  I 
decline  to  accept  it." 

The  president  tilted  his  chair  and  locked  his 
hands  over  one  knee. 

"It  isn't  a  question  of  shifting  the  responsi- 
bility, Montague,"  he  said,  dropping  the  bullying 

25 


The  Real  Man 

weapon  to  take  up  another.  "The  loan  was  made 
in  my  absence.  Perhaps  you  may  say  that  I 
went  away  purposely  to  give  you  the  chance  of 
making  it,  but,  if  you  do,  nobody  will  believe  you. 
When  it  comes  down  to  the  matter  of  authoriza- 
tion, it  is  simply  your  word  against  mine — and 
mine  goes.  Don't  you  see  what  you've  done  ? 
As  the  matter  stands  now,  you  have  let  yourself 
in  for  a  criminal  indictment,  if  the  bank  directors 
choose  to  push  it.  You  have  taken  the  bank's 
money  to  bolster  up  a  failing  concern  in  which 
you  are  a  stockholder.  Go  to  any  lawyer  in 
Lawrenceville — the  best  one  you  can  find — and 
he'll  tell  you  exactly  where  you  stand." 

While  the  big  clock  over  the  vault  entrance 
was  slowly  ticking  off  a  full  half-minute  the 
young  man  whose  future  had  become  so  suddenly 
and  so  threateningly  involved  neither  moved  nor 
spoke,  but  his  silence  was  no  measure  of  the  tur- 
moil of  conflicting  emotions  and  passions  that 
were  rending  him.  When  he  looked  up,  the  pas- 
sions, passions  which  had  hitherto  been  mere 
names  to  him,  were  still  under  control,  but  to 
his  dismay  his  restraining  hold  upon  them  seemed 
to  be  growing  momentarily  less  certain. 

"I  may  not  prove  quite  the  easy  mark  that 
your  plan  seems  to  prefigure,  Mr.  Dunham,"  he 

26 


Metastasis 

returned  at  length,  trying  to  say  it  calmly.  "But 
assuming  that  I  am  all  that  you  have  been  count- 
ing upon,  and  that  you  will  carry  out  your  threat 
and  take  the  matter  into  the  courts,  what  is  the  al- 
ternative? Just  what  are  you  expecting  me  to  do?" 

"Now  you  are  talking  more  like  a  grown  man," 
was  the  president's  crusty  admission.  "You  are 
in  a  pretty  bad  boat,  Montague,  and  that  is  why 
I  sent  for  you  to-night.  It  didn't  seem  safe  to 
waste  any  time  if  you  were  to  be  helped  out.  Of 
course,  there  will  be  a  called  meeting  of  the  bank 
board  to-morrow,  and  it  will  all  come  out.  With 
the  best  will  in  the  world  to  do  you  a  good  turn, 
I  shan't  be  able  to  stand  between  you  and 
trouble." 

"Well?"  said  the  younger  man,  still  holding 
the  new  and  utterly  incomprehensible  passions 
in  check. 

"You  can  see  how  it  will  be.  If  I  can  say  to 
the  directors  that  you  have  already  resigned — 
and  if  you  are  not  where  they  can  too  easily  lay 
hands  on  you — they  may  not  care  to  push  the 
charge  against  you.  There  is  a  train  west  at  ten 
o'clock.  If  I  were  in  your  place,  I  should  pack  a 
couple  of  suitcases  and  take  it.  That  is  the  only 
safe  thing  for  you  to  do.  If  you  need  any  ready 
money " 

27 


The  Real  Man 

It  was  at  this  point  that  J.  Montague  Smith 
rose  up  out  of  the  stenographer's  chair  and  but- 
toned his  coat. 

"If  I  need  any  ready  money,,,,  he  repeated 
slowly,  advancing  a  step  toward  the  president's 
desk.  "That  is  where  you  gave  yourself  away, 
Mr.  Dunham.  You  authorized  that  loan,  and 
you  meant  to  authorize  it.  More  than  that,  you 
did  it  because  you  were  willing  to  use  the  bank's 
money  to  put  Carter  Westfall  in  the  hole  so  deep 
that  he  could  never  climb  out.  Now,  it  seems, 
you  are  willing  to  bribe  the  only  dangerous  wit- 
ness. I  don't  need  money  badly  enough  to  sell 
my  good  name  for  it.  I  shall  stay  right  here  in 
Lawrenceville  and  fight  it  out  with  you!" 

The  president  turned  abruptly  to  his  desk  and  his 
hand  sought  the  row  of  electric  bell-pushes.  With 
a  finger  resting  upon  the  one  marked  "police," 
he  said:  "There  isn't  any  room  for  argument, 
Montague.  You  can  have  one  more  minute  in 
which  to  change  your  mind.  If  you  stay,  you'll 
begin  your  fight  from  the  inside  of  the  county 
jail."   " 

Now,  as  we  have  seen,  there  had  been  nothing 
in  John  Montague  Smith's  well-ordered  quarter 
century  of  boyhood,  youth,  and  business  man- 
hood to  tell  him  how  to  cope  with  the  crude  and 

28 


Metastasis 

savage  emergency  which  he  was  confronting.  But 
in  the  granted  minute  of  respite  something  with- 
in him,  a  thing  as  primitive  and  elemental  as  the 
crisis  with  which  it  was  called  upon  to  grapple, 
shook  itself  awake.  At  the  peremptory  bidding 
of  the  newly  aroused  underman,  he  stepped 
quickly  across  the  intervening  space  and  stood 
under  the  shaded  desk  light  within  arm's  reach 
of  the  man  in  the  big  swing-chair. 

"You  have  it  all  cut  and  dried,  even  to  the 
setting  of  the  police  trap,  haven't  you?"  he 
gritted,  hardly  recognizing  his  own  voice.  "You 
meant  to  hang  me  first  and  try  your  own  case 
with  the  directors  afterward.  Mr.  Dunham,  I 
know  you  better  than  you  think  I  do:  you  are 
not  only  a  damned  crook — you  are  a  yellow- 
livered  coward,  as  well !  You  don't  dare  to  press 
that  button!" 

While  he  was  saying  it,  the  president  had  half 
risen,  and  the  hand  which  had  been  hovering  over 
the  bell-pushes  shot  suddenly  under  the  piled 
papers  in  the  corner  of  the  desk.  When  it  came 
out  it  was  gripping  the  weapon  which  is  never 
very  far  out  of  reach  in  a  bank. 

Good  judges  on  the  working  floor  of  the  Law- 
renceville  Athletic  Club  had  said  of  the  well- 
muscled    young    bank    cashier   that    he    did    not 

29 


The  Real  Man 

know  his  own  strength.  It  was  the  sight  of  the 
pistol  that  maddened  him  and  put  the  driving 
force  behind  the  smashing  blow  that  landed  upon 
the  big  man's  chest.  Two  inches  higher  or  lower, 
the  blow  might  have  been  merely  breath-cutting. 
As  it  was,  the  lifted  pistol  dropped  from  Mr. 
Watrous  Dunham's  grasp  and  he  wilted,  settling 
back  slowly,  first  into  his  chair,  and  then  slipping 
from  the  chair  to  the  floor. 

In  a  flash  Smith  knew  what  he  had  done.  Once, 
one  evening  when  he  had  been  induced  to  put  on 
the  gloves  with  the  Athletic  Club's  trainer,  he  had 
contrived  to  plant  a  body  blow  which  had  sent 
the  wiry  little  Irishman  to  the  mat,  gasping  and 
fighting  for  the  breath  of  life.  "If  ever  yez'll  be 
givin'  a  man  that  heart-punch  wid  th'  bare  fisht, 
Misther  Montygue,  'tis  you  f'r  th'  fasht  thrain 
widout  shtoppin'  to  buy  anny  ticket — it'll  be 
murdher  in  th'  first  degree,"  the  trainer  had  said, 
when  he  had  breath  to  compass  the  saying. 

With  the  unheeded  warning  resurgent  and 
clamoring  in  his  ears,  Smith  knelt  horror-stricken 
beside  the  fallen  man.  On  the  president's  heavy 
face  and  in  the  staring  eyes  there  was  a  foolish 
smile,  as  of  one  mildly  astonished.  Smith  loosened 
the  collar  around  the  thick  neck  and  laid  his  ear 
upon  the  spot  where  the  blow  had  fallen.     It  was 

30 


In  a  flash  Smith  knew  what  he  had  done. 


.  .  ; 


Metastasis 

as  the  Irish  trainer  had  told  him  it  would  be. 
The  big  man's  heart  had  stopped  like  a  smashed 
clock. 

Smith  got  upon  his  feet,  turned  off  the  electric 
light,  and,  from  mere  force  of  habit,  closed  and 
snap-locked  the  president's  desk.  The  watchman 
had  not  yet  returned.  Smith  saw  the  empty 
chair  beside  the  vault  door  as  he  passed  it  on  his 
way  to  the  street.  Since  the  first  impulse  of  the 
unwilling  or  unwitting  homicide  is  usually  sharply 
retributive,  the  cashier's  only  thought  was  to  go 
at  once  to  police  headquarters  and  give  himself 
up.  Then  he  remembered  how  carefully  the  trap 
had  been  set,  and  how  impossible  it  would  be  for 
him  to  make  any  reasonable  defense.  As  it  would 
appear,  he  had  first  taken  the  bank's  money  to 
help  Westfall,  and  afterward,  when  exposure  had 
threatened,  he  had  killed  the  president.  No  one 
would  ever  believe  that  the  blow  had  been  struck 
in  self-defense. 

It  was  at  the  hesitating  instant  that  Debritt's 
curiously  prophetic  words  came  back  to  him  with 
an  emphasis  that  was  fairly  appalling:  "To- 
morrow we  may  both  be  asking  for  a  hand-out, 
and  inquiring,  a  bit  hoarsely,  perhaps,  if  the  walk- 
ing is  good.  That  is  just  how  thin  the  partitions 
are."     With  one  glance  over  his  shoulder  at  the 

31 


The  Real  Man 

darkened  front  windows  of  the  bank,  Smith  began 
to  run,  not  toward  the  police  station,  but  in  the 
opposite   direction — toward   the   railroad   station. 

This  was  at  nine  o'clock  or,  perhaps,  a  few 
minutes  later.  Coincident  with  J.  Montague 
Smith's  dash  down  the  poorly  lighted  cross  street, 
a  rather  weak-faced  young  man  of  the  sham 
black-sheep  type  of  the  smaller  cities  was  loung- 
ing in  the  drawing-room  of  an  ornate  timber-and- 
stucco  mansion  on  Maple  Street  hill  and  saying 
to  his  hostess:  "Say — I  thought  this  was  Monty's 
night  to  climb  the  hill,  Miss  Verda.  By  Jove, 
I've  got  it  in  for  Monty,  don't  y'  know.  He's 
comin'  here  a  lot  too  regular  to  please  me." 

"Mr.  Smith  always  puts  business  before  plea- 
sure; haven't  you  found  that  out  yet,  Mr.  Jib- 
bey?"  was  the  rather  cryptic  rejoinder  of  the 
Olympian  beauty;  and  after  that  she  talked, 
and  made  the  imitation  rounder  talk,  pointedly 
of  other  things. 


32 


Ill 

The  Hobo 

FOR  J.  Montague  Smith,  slipping  from  shadow 
to  shadow  down  the  scantily  lighted  cross 
street  and  listening  momently  for  the  footfalls  of 
pursuit,  a  new  hour  had  struck.  Psychology  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding,  the  mental  muta- 
tions are  not  always,  or  of  necessity,  gradual.  In 
one  flaming  instant  the  ex-cashier  had  been  pro- 
jected across  the  boundary  lying  between  the 
commonplace  and  the  extraordinary;  but  for  the 
time  he  was  conscious  only  of  a  great  confusion, 
shot  through  with  a  sense  of  his  own  present  in- 
ability to  cope  with  the  strangenesses. 

In  the  projecting  instant,  time  and  the  grasp- 
able  realities  had  both  been  annihilated.  Was 
it  conceivable  that  this  was  the  evening  of  the 
same  day  in  which  he  had  entertained  Boswell 
Debritt  at  the  Country  Club  ?  Was  it  remotely 
thinkable  that,  only  an  hour  or  such  a  matter 
earlier,  he  had  been  getting  ready  to  call  upon 
Verda  Richlander  ? — that,  at  this  very  moment, 

33 


The  Real  Man 

his   dress   clothes  were   lying  on   the   bed   in   his 
rooms,  ready  to  be  put  on  ? 

It  was  all  prodigiously  incredible;  in  the  col- 
lapse of  the  universe  one  scene  alone  stood  out 
clearly  cut  and  vivid:  the  railed  space  in  the 
bank,  with  the  shaded  drop-light  and  the  open 
desk,  and  a  fleshy  man  stretched  out  upon  the 
floor  with  his  arms  flung  wide  and  a  foolish  smile 
of  mild  astonishment  fixed,  as  for  all  eternity, 
about  the  loosened  lips  and  in  the  staring  eyes. 

Smith  hurried  on.  The  crowding  sensations 
were  terrifying,  but  they  were  also  precious,  in 
their  way.  Long-forgotten  bits  of  brutality  and 
tyranny  on  Watrous  Dunham's  part  came  up  to 
be  remembered  and,  in  this  retributive  aftermath, 
to  be  triumphantly  crossed  off  as  items  in  an  ac- 
count finally  settled.  On  the  Smith  side  the 
bank  cashier's  forebears  had  been  plodding  farm- 
ers, but  old  John  Montague  had  been  the  vil- 
lage blacksmith  and  a  soldier — a  shrewd  smiter  in 
both  trades.  Blood  will  tell.  Parental  implant- 
ings  may  have  much  to  say  to  the  fruit  of  the 
womb,  but  atavism  has  more.  Smith's  jaw  came 
up  with  a  snap  and  the  metamorphosis  took  an- 
other forward  step.  He  was  no  longer  an  indis- 
tinguishable unit  in  the  ranks  of  the  respectable 
and  the  well-behaved;    he  was  a  man  fleeing  for 

34 


The  Hobo 

his  life.  What  was  done  was  done,  and  the  next 
thing  to  do  was  to  avert  the  consequences. 

At  the  railroad  station  a  few  early  comers  for 
the  westbound  passenger-train  due  at  ten  o'clock 
were  already  gathering,  and  at  the  bidding  of  a 
certain  new  and  militant  craftiness  Smith  avoided 
the  lighted  waiting-rooms  as  if  they  held  the 
pestilence.  Nor  was  it  safe  to  pass  beyond  the 
building.  The  May  night  was  fine,  and  there 
were  strollers  on  the  train  platform.  Smith  took 
no  risks.  A  string  of  box  cars  had  been  pushed 
up  from  the  freight  unloading  platforms,  and  in 
the  shadow  of  the  cars  he  worked  his  way  west- 
ward to  the  yard  where  a  night  switching  crew 
was  making  up  a  train. 

Thus  far  he  had  struck  out  no  plan.  But  the 
sudden  shift  from  the  normal  to  the  extraordinary 
had  not  shorn  him  of  the  ability  to  think  quickly 
and  to  the  definite  end.  A  placed  road-engine, 
waiting  for  the  conclusion  of  the  car  sorting,  told 
him  that  the  next  train  to  leave  the  yard  would 
be  a  westbound  freight.  He  would  have  given 
much  to  know  its  exact  leaving  time,  but  he  was 
far  too  clear-headed  to  give  the  pursuers  a  clew 
by  asking  questions. 

Keeping  to  the  shadows,  he  walked  back  along 
the  line  of  cars  on  the  make-up  track,   alertly 

35 


The  Real  Man 

seeking  his  opportunity.  If  worst  came  to  worst, 
he  could  select  a  car  with  four  truss-rods  and 
crawl  in  on  top  of  the  rods  after  the  manner  of 
the  professional  ride-stealers.  But  this  was  a  last 
resort;  the  risk  was  large  for  his  inexperience, 
and  he  was  very  well  aware  that  there  must  be 
some  sort  of  an  apprenticeship,  even  to  the 
"brake-beamer's"  trade. 

Half-way  down  the  length  of  the  train  he  found 
what  he  was  looking  for:  a  box  car  with  its  side- 
door  hasped  but  not  locked.  With  a  bit  of  stick 
to  lengthen  his  reach,  he  unfastened  the  hasp,  and 
at  the  switching  crew's  addition  of  another  car 
to  the  " make-up"  he  took  advantage  of  the  noise 
made  by  the  jangling  crash  and  slid  the  door. 
Then  he  ascertained  by  groping  into  the  dark  in- 
terior that  the  car  was  empty.  With  a  foot  on 
the  truss-rod  he  climbed  in,  and  at  the  next 
coupling  crash  closed  the  door. 

So  far,  all  was  well.  Unless  the  start  should  be 
too  long  delayed,  or  the  trainmen  should  discover 
the  unhasped  door,  he  was  measurably  safe.  Still 
cool  and  collected,  he  began  to  cast  about  for 
some  means  of  replacing  the  outside  fastening  of 
the  door  from  within.  There  was  loose  hay  under- 
foot and  it  gave  him  his  idea.  Groping  again,  he 
found   a  piece  of  wire,   a  broken  bale-tie.     The 

36 


The  Hobo 

box  car  was  old  and  much  of  its  inner  sheathing 
had  disappeared.  With  the  help  of  his  pocket- 
knife  he  enlarged  a  crack  in  the  outer  sheathing 
near  the  door,  and  a  skilful  bit  of  juggling  with 
the  bent  wire  sufficed  to  lift  the  hasp  into  place 
on  the  outside  and  hook  it. 

Following  this  clever  removal  of  one  of  the 
hazards,  he  squatted  upon  the  floor  near  the  door 
and  waited.  Though  he  was  familiar  with  the 
schedules  of  the  passenger-trains  serving  the  home 
city,  he  knew  nothing  of  the  movements  of  the 
freights.  Opening  the  face  of  his  watch,  he  felt 
the  hands.  It  was  half-past  nine,  and  the  thrust 
and  whistle  of  the  air-brakes  under  the  cars  gave 
notice  that  the  road  engine  had  been  coupled  on. 
Still  the  train  did  not  pull  out. 

After  a  little  he  was  able  to  account  for  the  de- 
lay. Though  his  knowledge  of  railroad  operating 
was  limited,  common  sense  told  him  that  the 
freight  would  not  be  likely  to  leave,  now,  ahead 
of  the  ten  o'clock  passenger.  That  meant  an- 
other half-hour  of  suspense  to  be  paid  for  in  such 
coin  as  one  might  be  able  to  offer.  The  fugitive 
paid  in  keen  agonies  of  apprehension.  Surely, 
long  before  this  the  watchman  would  have  re- 
turned to  the  bank,  and  the  hue  and  cry  being 
raised,  the  pursuit  must  now  be  afoot.     In  that 

37 


The  Real  Man 

case,  the  dullest  policeman  on  the  force  would 
know  enough  to  make  straight  for  the  railroad 
yard. 

Smith  knelt  at  the  crack  of  the  car  door  and 
listened,  while  the  minutes  dragged  slowly  in 
procession.  Once,  through  the  crack,  he  had  a 
glimpse  of  the  smoky  flare  of  a  kerosene  torch 
in  the  hands  of  a  passing  car-inspector;  and  once 
again,  one  of  the  trainmen  walked  back  over  the 
tops  of  the  cars,  making  a  creaky  thundering 
overhead  as  he  tramped  from  end  to  end  of  the 
"empty."  But  as  yet  there  was  no  hue  and  cry, 
or,  if  there  were,  it  had  not  reached  the  railroad 
yard. 

Keenly  alive  to  every  passing  sound,  Smith 
finally  heard  the  passenger-train  coming  in  from 
the  east;  heard  the  hoarse  stridor  of  the  engine's 
pop-valve  at  the  station  stop,  and  the  distance- 
diminished  rumblings  of  the  baggage  and  express 
trucks  over  the  wooden  station  platform.  The 
stop  was  a  short  one,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the 
passenger-train  came  down  through  the  yard,  its 
pace  measured  by  the  sharp  staccato  blasts  of 
the  exhaust.  It  was  the  signal  of  release,  and  as 
the  quickening  staccato  trailed  away  into  silence, 
Smith  braced  himself  for  the  slack-taking  jerk  of 
the  starting  freight. 

38 


The  Hobo 

The  jerk  did  not  come.  Minute  by  minute  the 
interval  lengthened,  and  at  last  the  listener  in 
the  "empty"  heard  voices  and  saw  through  the 
crack  of  the  door  a  faint  nimbus  of  lantern  light 
approaching  from  the  rear  of  the  train.  The 
voices  came  nearer.  By  the  dodging  movements 
of  the  light  rays,  Smith  knew  instantly  what  was 
coming.  His  pursuers  were  out,  and  they  were 
overhauling  the  waiting  freight-train,  searching 
it  for  a  stowaway. 

He  hardly  dared  breathe  when  the  lantern- 
bearers  reached  his  car.  There  were  a  number 
of  them,  just  how  many  he  could  not  determine. 
But  McCloskey,  the  Lawrenceville  chief  of  police, 
was  one  of  the  number.  Also,  there  was  an  Irish 
yardman  who  was  carrying  one  of  the  lanterns 
and  swinging  it  under  the  cars  to  show  that  the 
truss-rods  and  brake-beams  were  empty. 

"  'Tis  not  the  likes  of  him  that  do  be  brake- 
beamin'  their  way  out  of  town,  Chief,"  the  Irish- 
man was  saying.  "  'Tis  more  likely  he's  tuk  an 
autymobile  and  the  middle  of  the  big  road." 

"There's  no  automobile  missing,  and  his  own 
car  is  still  in  the  garage,"  Smith  heard  the  police 
chief  say.  And  then:  "Hold  your  lantern  up 
here,  Timmy,  till  we  see  if  this  car  door  is  fastened 
shut." 

39 


The  Real  Man 

It  was  a  measure  of  the  distance  that  the  bank 
clerk  and  small-city  social  leader  had  already 
travelled  on  the  road  toward  a  complete  meta- 
morphosis that  the  only  answer  to  this  threat  of 
discovery  was  a  tightening  of  the  muscles,  a  cer- 
tain steeling  of  thews  and  sinews  for  the  wild- 
beast  spring  if  the  door  should  be  opened.  One 
thought  dominated  all  others:  if  they  took  him 
they  should  not  take  him  alive. 

Happily  or  unhappily,  as  one  may  wish  to 
view  it,  the  danger  passed.  "The  door's  fastened, 
all  right,"  said  one  of  the  searchers,  and  the 
menace  went  on,  leaving  Smith  breathing  hard 
and  chuckling  grimly  to  himself  over  the  cunning 
forethought  which  had  prompted  him  to  grope 
for  the  bit  of  wire  bale-tie. 

Past  this  there  was  another  interval  of  waiting — 
a  brief  one,  this  time.  Then  the  long  freight  be- 
gan to  move  out  over  the  switches.  When  he 
could  no  longer  see  the  sheen  of  the  city  electrics 
in  the  strip  of  sky  visible  through  his  door  crack, 
Smith  gathered  up  the  leavings  of  hay  on  the  car 
floor  and  stretched  himself  out  flat  on  his  back. 
And  it  was  another  measure  of  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  elemental  underman  over  the  bank 
clerk  that  he  immediately  fell  asleep  and  did  not 

40 


The  Hobo 

awaken  until  a  jangling  of  draw-bars  and  a  ray 
of  sunlight  sifting  through  the  crack  of  the  door 
told  him  that  the  train  had  arrived  at  some  destina- 
tion, and  that  it  was  morning. 

Sitting  up  to  rub  his  eyes  and  look  at  his  watch, 
the  fugitive  made  a  hasty  calculation.  If  the 
train  had  been  in  motion  all  night,  this  early 
morning  stopping-place  should  be  Indianapolis. 
Getting  upon  his  feet,  he  applied  an  investigative 
eye  to  the  crack.  The  train,  or  at  least  his  por- 
tion of  it,  was  side-tracked  in  a  big  yard  with 
many  others.  Working  the  pick-lock  wire  again, 
he  unhasped  the  door  and  opened  it.  There  was 
no  one  in  sight  in  this  particular  alley  of  the 
crowded  yard,  and  he  dropped  to  the  ground  and 
slid  the  door  back  into  place. 

Making  a  note  of  the  initials  and  number,  so 
that  he  might  find  the  car  again,  he  crawled  under 
three  or  four  standing  trains  and  made  his  way 
to  a  track-side  lunch-counter.  The  thick  ham 
sandwich  and  the  cup  of  muddy  coffee  eaten  and 
drunk  with  the  appetite  of  a  starved  vagrant  set 
up  another  milestone  in  the  distances  traversed. 
Was  it,  indeed,  only  on  the  morning  of  yester- 
day that  he  had  sent  his  toast  back  because, 
forsooth,    the    maid     at     Mrs.     Gilman's     select 

41 


The  Real  Man 

boarding-house  for  single  gentlemen  had  scorched 
it  a  trifle  ?  It  seemed  as  incredible  as  a  fairy- 
tale. 

Beyond  the  quenching  of  his  hunger  and  the 
stuffing  of  his  pockets  with  two  more  of  the  sad 
sandwiches,  he  went  back  to  his  box  car,  knowing 
that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  his  flight  was  as  yet 
only  fairly  begun.  His  train,  or  some  train  in 
which  his  car  was  a  unit,  was  just  pulling  out, 
and  he  was  barely  in  time  to  slide  the  door  and 
scramble  in.  Once  inside,  he  made  haste  to  close 
the  opening  before  the  train  should  emerge  from 
the  shelter  of  its  mate  on  the  next  track.  But 
before  he  could  brace  himself  for  the  shove,  a 
hand  came  down  from  the  car  roof,  a  brakeman's 
coupling-stick  was  thrust  into  the  riding-rail  of 
the  door,  and  the  closing  operation  was  effectively 
blocked. 

Smith  stood  back  and  waited  for  a  head  to 
follow  the  hand.  It  came  presently;  the  bare, 
tousled  head  of  a  young  brakeman  who  had  taken 
off  his  cap  and  was  lying  on  his  stomach  on  the 
car  roof  to  look  under  the  eaves  into  the  interior. 
Smith  made  a  quick  spring  and  caught  the  hang- 
ing head  in  the  crook  of  his  elbow.  "You're 
gone,"  he  remarked  to  the  inverted  face  crushed 

42 


The  Hobo 

in  the  vise  of  forearm  and  biceps.  "If  you  turn 
loose,  you'll  break  your  back  as  you  come  over, 
and  if  you  don't  turn  loose,  I  can  pull  your  head 
off." 

"Leggo  of  me  !"  gasped  the  poor  prisoner,  drum- 
ming with  his  toes  on  the  roof.  "Wha — whadda 
you  want  with  my  head  ?  You  can't  do  nothin' 
with  it  when  you  get  it !" 

"I  have  got  it,"  said  Smith,  showing  his  teeth. 
"By  and  by,  when  we  get  safely  out  of  town,  I'm 
going  to  jump  up  and  bite  you." 

The  brakeman  tried  to  cry  out  that  he  was 
slipping;  that  the  fall  would  kill  him.  Smith 
felt  him  coming  and  shifted  his  hold  just  in  time 
to  make  the  fall  an  assisted  somersault,  landing 
the  man  clumsily,  but  safely,  inside  of  the  car. 
The  trigging  stick  had  been  lost  in  the  scuffle, 
and  Smith's  first  care  was  to  slide  the  door. 

"Say;  what  kind  of  a  'bo  are  you,  anyway?" 
gasped  the  railroad  man,  flattening  himself  against 
the  side  of  the  car  and  struggling  to  regain  his 
suddenly  lost  prestige;  the  time-honored  author- 
ity of  the  trainman  over  the  ride-stealer.  "Don't 
you  know  you  might  'a'  killed  me,  pullin'  me  ofF'm 
the  roof  that  way  ?" 

"I  can  do  it  yet,  if  you  feel  that  you've  missed 

43 


The  Real  Man 

anything  that  was  rightfully  coming  to  you," 
Smith  laughed.  Then:  "Do  you  happen  to  have 
a  pipe  and  a  bit  of  tobacco  in  your  clothes  ?" 

"My  gosh!"  said  the  brakeman,  "I  like  your 
nerve  !"  Nevertheless,  he  rummaged  in  his  pocket 
and  handed  over  a  corn-cob  pipe  and  a  sack  of 
tobacco.     "Maybe  you'll  want  a  match,  too." 

"No,  thanks;    I  have  one." 

Smith  filled  the  pipe,  lighted  it,  and  returned 
the  tobacco.  The  nickel  mixture  was  not  quite 
like  the  Turkish  blend  in  the  humidor  jar  on  the 
Kincaid  Terrace  mantel,  but  it  sufficed.  At  the 
pipe-puffing  the  brakeman  looked  him  over 
curiously. 

"Say;  you're  no  Weary  Willie,"  he  commented 
gruffly;  "you're  wearin'  too  good  clothes.  What's 
your  lay  ?" 

More  and  more  Smith  could  feel  the  shack- 
lings  of  the  reputable  yesterdays  slipping  from 
him.  Civilization  has  taken  its  time  ambling 
down  the  centuries,  but  the  short  cuts  to  the 
primitive  are  neither  hard  to  find  nor  long  to 
traverse. 

"My  May'  just  now  is  to  get  a  free  ride  on 
this  railroad,"  he  said.  "How  far  is  this  ' empty' 
going?" 

44 


The  Hobo 

"To  St.  Louis,"  was  the  reply,  extorted  by  the 
very  matter-of-fact  calmness  of  the  question. 
"  But  you're  not  goin'  to  St.  Louis  in  it — not  by  a 
jugful.  You're  goin'  to  hop  off  at  the  first  stop 
we  make." 

"Am  I  ?  Wait  until  I  have  finished  my  smoke. 
Then  we'll  open  the  door  and  scrap  for  it;  the 
best  man  to  stay  in  the  car,  and  the  other  to  take 
a  chance  turning  handsprings  along  the  right  of 
way.     Does  that  appeal  to  you?" 

"No,  by  jacks!     You  bet  your  life  it  don't!" 

"All  right;   what's  the  other  answer?" 

If  the  brakeman  knew  any  other  answer  he  did 
not  suggest  it.  A  few  miles  farther  along,  the 
train  slowed  for  a  stop.  The  brakeman  felt  his 
twisted  neck  tenderly  and  said:  "If  you'll  tell 
me  that  you  ain't  runnin'  away  from  some  sheriff 
'r  other.  .  .   ." 

"Do  I  look  it?" 

"I'm  dogged  if  I  know  what  you  do  look  like — 
champeen  middle-weight,  maybe.  Lemme  open 
that  door." 

Smith  took  a  final  whiff  and  returned  the  pipe. 
"Suppose  I  say  that  I'm  broke  and  haven't  had 
a  chance  to  pawn  my  watch,"  he  suggested. 
"How  does  that  strike  you  ?" 

45 


The  Real  Man 

The  trainman  slid  the  door  open  a  foot  or  so 
as  the  train  ground  and  jangled  to  a  stand  at  the 
grade  crossing  with  another  railroad. 

"I'll  think  about  it,"  he  growled.  "You  pulled 
me  off'm  the  roof;  but  you  kep'  me  from  breakin' 
my  back,  and  you've  smoked  my  pipe.  My  run 
ends  at  Terre  Haute." 

"Thanks,"  said  Smith;  and  at  that  the  tousle- 
headed  young  fellow  dropped  off  and  disappeared 
in  the  direction  of  the  caboose. 

Smith  closed  the  door  and  hooked  it  with  his 
wire,  and  the  train  jogged  on  over  the  crossing. 
Hour  after  hour  wore  away  and  nothing  hap- 
pened. By  the  measured  click  of  the  rail  joints 
under  the  wheels  it  was  evident  that  the  freight 
was  a  slow  one,  and  there  were  many  halts  and 
side-trackings.  At  noon  Smith  ate  one  of  the 
pocketed  sandwiches.  The  ham  was  oversalted, 
and  before  long  he  began  to  be  consumed  with 
thirst.  He  stood  it  until  it  became  a  keen  tor- 
ture, and  then  he  found  the  bit  of  wire  again  and 
tried  to  pick  the  hasp-lock,  meaning  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  next  stop  for  a  thirst-quenching 
dash. 

For  some  reason  the  wire  refused  to  work,  and 
he  could  not  make  it  free  the  hasp.     After  many 

46 


The  Hobo 

futile  attempts  he  whittled  another  peep-hole, 
angling  it  so  that  it  pointed  toward  the  puzzling 
door  hook.  Then  he  saw  what  had  been  done. 
Some  one — the  somersaulting  brakeman,  no  doubt 
— had  basely  inserted  a  wooden  peg  in  the  staple 
in  place  of  the  hook  and  the  empty  box  car  was 
now  a  prison-van. 

Confronting  the  water  famine,  Smith  drew 
again  upon  the  elemental  resources  and  braced 
himself  to  endure.  When  night  came  the  slow 
train  was  still  jogging  along  westward  somewhere 
in  Illinois,  and  the  box-car  prisoner  was  so  thirsty 
that  he  did  not  dare  to  eat  the  meat  in  the  re- 
maining sandwich;  could  eat  the  bread  only  in 
tiny  morsels,  chewed  long  and  patiently.  Still 
he  would  not  make  the  outcry  that  the  tricky 
brakeman  had  doubtless  counted  upon;  the  noise 
that  would  bring  help  at  any  one  of  the  numerous 
stops — and  purchase  relief  at  the  price  of  an  arrest 
for  ride-stealing. 

Grimly  resolute,  Smith  made  up  his  mind  to 
hang  on  until  morning.  Every  added  mile  was  a 
mile  gained  in  the  flight  from  the  gallows  or  the 
penitentiary,  and  the  night's  run  would  put  him 
just  that  much  farther  beyond  the  zone  of  acute 
danger.     Such  determination  fights  and  wins  its 

47 


The  Real  Man 

own  battle,  and  though  he  dreamed  of  lakes  and 
rivers  and  cool-running  brooks  and  plashing 
fountains  the  greater  part  of  the  night,  he  slept 
through  it  and  awoke  to  find  his  car  side-tracked 
in  a  St.  Louis  yard. 

One  glance  through  the  whittled  peep-hole 
showed  him  that  the  imprisoning  peg  was  still 
in  its  staple,  so  now  there  was  no  alternative  but 
the  noise.  A  brawny  switchman  was  passing,  and 
he  came  and  unhasped  the  door  in  response  to 
Smith's  shower  of  kicks  upon  it. 

"Come  down  out  o'  that,  ye  scut!  'Tis  the 
stone  pile  f'r  the  likes  of  yez  in  this  State,  and  it's 
Michael  Toomey  that'll  be  runnin'  ye  in,"  re- 
marked the  brawny  person,  when  the  door  had 
been  opened. 

"Wait,"  said  Smith  hoarsely.  He  had  caught 
sight  of  a  bucket  of  water  with  a  dipper  in  it 
standing  by  the  door  of  the  switch  shanty,  and  he 
jumped  down  and  ran  for  it.  With  the  terrible 
thirst  assuaged,  he  wheeled  and  went  back  to 
the  big  switchman.  "Now  I'm  ready  to  be  run 
in,"  he  said.  "But  first,  you  know,  you've  got 
to  prove  that  you're  the  better  man,"  and  with 
that  he  whipped  off  his  coat  and  squared  himself 
for  the  battle. 

48 


The  Hobo 

It  was  joined  at  once,  the  big  man  being  Irish 
and  nothing  loath.  Also,  it  was  short  and  sweet. 
Barring  a  healthy  and  as  yet  unsatisfied  appetite, 
Smith  was  in  the  pink  of  condition,  and  the  little 
trainer  in  the  Lawrenceville  Athletic  Club  had 
imparted  the  needful  skill.  In  three  swift  rounds 
the  big  switchman  was  thrashed  into  a  proper 
state  of  submission  and  hospitality,  and  again, 
being  Irish,  he  bore  no  grudge. 

"You're  a  pugnayshus  young  traithor,  and  I'm 
fair  sick  for  to  be  doin'  ye  a  fayvor,"  spluttered 
the  big  man,  after  the  third  knock-out.  "What 
is  ut  ye'll  be  wantin'  i" 

Smith  promptly  named  three  things;  break- 
fast directions,  a  morning  paper,  and  a  railroad 
man's  advice  as  to  the  best  means  of  getting 
forward  on  his  journey.  His  new  ally  put  him 
in  the  way  of  compassing  all  three,  and  when 
the  westward  faring  was  resumed — this  time  in 
the  hollow  interior  of  a  huge  steel  smoke-stack 
loaded  in  sections  on  a  pair  of  flat  cars — he  went 
eagerly  through  the  newspaper.  The  thing  he 
was  looking  for  was  there,  under  flaring  head- 
lines; a  day  late,  to  be  sure,  but  that  was  doubt- 
less owing  to  Lawrenceville's  rather  poor  wire 
service. 

49 


The  Real  Man 

ATTEMPTED   MURDER  OF   BANK 
PRESIDENT 

Society-Leader  Cashier  Embezzles 
$100,000  and  Makes  Murder- 
ous Assault  on  President 

Lawrenceville,  May  15. — J.  Mon- 
tague Smith,  cashier  of  the  Lawrence- 
ville Bank  and  Trust  Company,  and  a 
leader  in  the  Lawrenceville  younger  set, 
is  to-day  a  fugitive  from  justice  with  a 
price  on  his  head.  At  a  late  hour  last 
night  the  watchman  of  the  bank  found 
President  Dunham  lying  unconscious  in 
front  of  his  desk.  Help  was  summoned, 
and  Mr.  Dunham,  who  was  supposed  to 
be  suffering  from  some  sudden  attack  of 
illness,  was  taken  to  his  hotel.  Later,  it 
transpired  that  the  president  had  been 
the  victim  of  a  murderous  assault.  Dis- 
covering upon  his  return  to  the  city  yes- 
terday evening  that  the  cashier  had  been 
using  the  bank's  funds  in  an  attempt  to 
cover  a  stock  speculation  of  his  own, 
Dunham  sent  for  Smith  and  charged  him 
with  the  crime.  Smith  made  an  unpro- 
voked and  desperate  assault  upon  his 
superior  officer,  beating  him  into  insensi- 
bility and  leaving  him  for  dead.  Since  it 
is  known  that  he  did  not  board  any  of  the 
night  trains  east  or  west,  Smith  is  sup- 
posed to  be  in  hiding  somewhere  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  city.  A  warrant  is  out, 
and  a  reward  of  $1,000  for  his  arrest  and 
detention  has  been  offered  by  the  bank. 
It  is  not  thought  possible  that  he  can 
escape.  It  was  currently  reported  not 
long  since  that  Smith  was  engaged  to  a 
prominent  young  society  woman  of  Law- 
renceville, but  this  has  proved  to  be  un- 
true. 

50 


The  Hobo 

Smith  read  the  garbled  news  story  with  mingled 
thankfulness  and  rage;  thankfulness  because  it 
told  him  that  he  was  not  a  murderer,  and  rage, 
no  less  at  Dunham's  malignant  ingenuity  than 
at  his  own  folly  in  setting  the  seal  of  finality  upon 
the  false  accusation  by  running  away.  But  the 
thing  was  done,  and  it  could  not  be  undone. 
Having  put  himself  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  law, 
there  was  nothing  for  it  now  but  a  complete  dis- 
appearance; exile,  a  change  of  identity,  and  an 
absolute  severance  with  his  past. 

While  he  was  folding  the  St.  Louis  newspaper 
and  putting  it  into  his  pocket,  he  was  wondering, 
half  cynically,  what  Verda  Richlander  was  think- 
ing of  him.  Was  it  she,  herself,  who  had  told  the 
newspaper  people  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
story  of  the  engagement  ?  That  she  would  side 
with  his  accusers  and  the  apparent,  or  at  least 
uncontradicted,  facts  he  could  hardly  doubt. 
There  was  no  very  strong  reason  why  she  should 
not,  he  told  himself,  rather  bitterly.  He  had  not 
tried  to  bind  her  to  him  in  any  shackling  of  sen- 
timent. Quite  the  contrary,  they  had  both  agreed 
to  accept  the  modern  view  that  sentiment  should 
be  regarded  as  a  mildly  irruptive  malady  which 
runs,  or  should  run,  its  course,  like  measles  or 

5i 


The  Real  Man 

chicken-pox,  in  early  adolescence.  That  being 
the  case,  Miss  Verda's  leaf — like  all  other  leaves 
in  the  book  of  his  past — might  be  firmly  pasted 
down  and  forgotten.  As  an  outlaw  with  a  price 
on  his  head  he  had  other  and  vastly  more  im- 
portant things  to  think  about. 

Twenty-four  hours  beyond  this  final  decision 
he  reached  Kansas  City,  where  there  was  a  delay 
and  some  little  diplomacy  to  be  brought  into 
play  before  he  could  convince  a  freight  crew  on 
the  Union  Pacific  that  he  had  to  be  carried,  free 
of  cost,  to  Denver.  In  the  Colorado  capital 
there  was  another  halt  and  more  trouble;  but 
on  the  second  day  he  found  another  empty  box 
car  and  was  once  more  moving  westward,  this 
time  toward  a  definite  destination. 

During  the  Denver  stop-over  he  had  formu- 
lated his  plan,  such  as  it  was.  In  a  newspaper 
which  he  had  picked  up,  he  had  lighted  upon  an 
advertisement  calling  for  laborers  to  go  over  into 
the  Timanyoni  country  to  work  on  an  irrigation 
project.  By  applying  at  the  proper  place  he  might 
have  procured  free  transportation  to  the  work, 
but  there  were  two  reasons  why  he  did  not  apply. 
One  was  prudently  cautionary  and  was  based  on 
the  fear  that  he  might  be  recognized.    The  other 

52 


The  Hobo 

was  less  easily  defined,  but  no  less  mandatory  in 
the  new  scheme  of  things.  The  vagabonding  had 
gotten  into  his  blood,  and  he  was  minded  to  go  on 
as  he  had  begun,  beating  his  way  to  the  job  like 
other  members  of  the  vagrant  brotherhood. 


53 


IV 

The  High  Hills 

TRAIN  Number  Seventeen,  the  Nevada 
through  freight,  was  two  hours  late  issuing 
from  the  western  portal  of  Timanyoni  Canyon. 
Through  the  early  mountain-climbing  hours  of 
the  night  and  the  later  flight  across  the  Red 
Desert,  the  dusty,  travel-grimed  young  fellow  in 
the  empty  box  car  midway  of  the  train  had  slept 
soundly,  with  the  hard  car  floor  for  a  bed  and  his 
folded  coat  for  a  pillow.  But  on  the  emergence 
of  the  train  from  the  echoing  canyon  depths  the 
sudden  cessation  of  the  crash  and  roar  of  the 
shut-in  mountain  passage  awoke  him  and  he  got 
up  to  open  the  door  and  look  out. 

It  was  still  no  later  than  a  lazy  man's  breakfast 
time,  and  the  May  morning  was  perfect,  with  a 
cobalt  sky  above  and  a  fine  tingling  quality  in 
the  air  to  set  the  blood  dancing  in  the  veins.  Over 
the  top  of  the  eastern  range  the  sun  was  looking, 
level-rayed,  into  a  parked  valley  bounded  on  all 
sides  by  high  spurs  and  distant  snow  peaks.  In 
its   nearer   reaches   the   valley   was   dotted   with 

54 


The  High  Hills 

round  hills,  some  of  them  bare,  others  dark  green 
to  their  summits  with  forestings  of  mountain 
pine  and  fir.  Now  that  it  was  out  of  the  canyon, 
the  train  was  skirting  the  foot  of  the  southern 
boundary  spur,  the  railroad  track  holding  its 
level  by  heading  the  gulches  and  rounding  the 
alternating  promontories. 

From  the  outer  loopings  of  the  curves,  the 
young  tramp  at  the  car  door  had  momentary 
glimpses  of  the  Timanyoni,  a  mountain  torrent 
in  its  canyon,  and  the  swiftest  of  upland  rivers 
even  here  where  it  had  the  valley  in  which  to 
expand.  A  Copah  switchman  had  told  him  that 
the  railroad  division  town  of  Brewster  lay  at  the 
end  of  the  night's  run,  in  a  river  valley  beyond 
the  eastern  Timanyonis,  and  that  the  situation 
of  the  irrigation  project  which  was  advertising 
for  laborers  in  the  Denver  newspapers  was  a  few 
miles  up  the  river  from  Brewster. 

For  reasons  of  his  own,  he  was  not  anxious  to 
make  a  daylight  entry  into  the  town  itself.  Sooner 
or  later,  of  course,  the  scrutiny  of  curious  eyes 
must  be  met,  but  there  was  no  need  of  running 
to  meet  the  risk.  Not  that  the  risk  was  very 
great.  While  he  was  killing  time  in  the  Copah 
yard  the  day  before,  waiting  for  a  chance  to  board 
the  night  freight,  he  had  picked  up  a  bit  of  broken 

55 


The  Real  Man 

looking-glass  and  put  it  in  his  pocket.  The  pic- 
ture it  gave  back  when  he  took  it  out  and  looked 
into  it  was  that  of  a  husky  young  tramp  with  a 
stubble  beard  a  week  old,  and  on  face  and  neck 
and  hands  the  accumulated  grime  of  two  thousand 
miles  of  freight-train  riding.  Also,  the  week's 
wear  and  tear  had  been,  if  anything,  harder  on 
the  clothes  than  on  the  man.  His  hat  had  been 
lost  in  one  of  the  railroad-yard  train-boardings 
and  he  had  replaced  it  in  Denver  with  a  work- 
man's cap.  It  was  a  part  of  the  transformation, 
wrought  and  being  wrought  in  him,  that  he  was 
able  to  pocket  the  bit  of  looking-glass  with  a  slow 
grin  of  satisfaction.  When  one  is  about  to  apply 
for  a  job  as  a  laboring  man  it  is  well  to  look  the 
part. 

As  the  train  swept  along  on  its  way  down  the 
grades  the  valley  became  more  open  and  the 
prospect  broadened.  At  one  of  the  promontory 
roundings  the  box-car  passenger  had  a  glimpse  of 
a  shack-built  construction  camp  on  the  river's 
margin  some  distance  on  ahead.  A  concrete  dam 
was  rising  in  sections  out  of  the  river,  and  dom- 
inating the  dam  and  the  shacks  two  steel  towers, 
with  a  carrying  cable  stretched  between  them, 
formed  the  piers  of  the  aerial  spout  conveyer  for 
the  placing  of  the  material  in  the  forms. 

56 


The  High  Hills 

A  mile  or  more  short  of  the  construction  camp 
the  railroad  made  another  of  the  many  gulch 
loopings;  and  on  its  next  emergence  the  train  had 
passed  the  site  of  the  dam,  leaving  it  fully  a  mile 
in  the  rear.  Here  the  young  man  at  the  car  door 
saw  the  ditch  company's  unloading  side-track 
with  a  spur  branching  away  from  the  main  line 
and  crossing  the  river  on  a  temporary  trestle. 
There  were  material  yards  on  both  sides  of  the 
stream,  and  in  one  of  the  opposing  hills  a  busy 
quarry. 

The  train  made  no  stop  at  the  construction 
siding,  but  a  half-mile  farther  along  the  brakes 
began  to  grind  and  the  speed  was  slackened. 
Sliding  the  car  door  another  foot  or  two,  the 
young  tramp  with  the  week-old  stubble  beard 
on  his  face  leaned  out  to  look  ahead.  His  op- 
portunity was  at  hand.  A  block  semaphore  was 
turned  against  the  freight  and  the  train  was  slow- 
ing in  obedience  to  the  signal.  Waiting  until  the 
brakes  shrilled  again,  the  tramp  put  his  shoulder 
to  the  sliding  door,  sat  for  a  moment  in  the  wider 
opening,  and  then  swung  off. 

After  the  train  had  gone  on  he  drew  himself 
up,  took  a  deep  chest-filling  breath  of  the  crisp 
morning  air,  and  looked  about  him.  The  sun 
was   an  hour  high  over  the  eastern  mountains, 

57 


The  Real  Man 

and  the  new  world  spread  itself  in  broad  detail. 
His  alighting  was  upon  one  of  the  promontory 
embankments.  To  the  westward,  where  the 
curving  railroad  track  was  lost  in  the  farther 
windings  of  the  river,  lay  the  little  intermoun- 
tain  city  of  Brewster,  a  few  of  its  higher  build- 
ings showing  clear-cut  in  the  distance.  Paral- 
leling the  railroad,  on  a  lower  level  and  nearer 
the  river,  a  dusty  wagon  road  pointed  in  one 
direction  toward  the  town,  and  in  the  other  to- 
ward the  construction  camp. 

The  young  man  who  had  crossed  four  States 
and  the  better  part  of  a  fifth  as  a  fugitive  and 
vagrant  turned  his  back  upon  the  distant  town  as 
a  place  to  be  avoided.  Scrambling  down  the 
railroad  embankment,  he  made  his  way  to  the 
wagon  road,  crossed  it,  and  kept  on  until  he  came 
to  the  fringe  of  aspens  on  the  river's  edge,  where 
he  broke  all  the  trampish  traditions  by  stripping 
off  the  travel-worn  clothes  and  plunging  in  to 
take  a  soapless  bath.  The  water,  being  melted 
snow  from  the  range,  was  icy-cold  and  it  stabbed 
like  knives.  Nevertheless,  it  was  wet,  and  some 
part  of  the  travel  dust,  at  least,  was  soluble  in  it. 
He  came  out  glowing,  but  a  thorn  from  his  well- 
groomed  past  came  up  and  pricked  him  when  he 
had  to  put  the  soiled  clothes  on  again.     There 

58 


The  High  Hills 

was  no  present  help  for  that,  however;  and  five 
minutes  later  he  had  regained  the  road  and  was 
on  his  way  to  the  ditch  camp. 

When  he  had  gone  a  little  distance  he  found 
that  the  wagon  road  dodged  the  railroad  track 
as  it  could,  crossing  and  recrossing  the  right  of 
way  twice  before  the  construction  camp  came  into 
view.  The  last  of  the  crossings  was  at  the  tem- 
porary material  yard  for  which  the  side-track  had 
been  installed,  and  from  this  point  on,  the  wagon 
road  held  to  the  river  bank.  The  ditch  people 
were  doubtless  getting  all  their  material  over  the 
railroad  so  there  would  be  little  hauling  by  wagon. 
But  there  were  automobile  tracks  in  the  dust,  and 
shortly  after  he  had  passed  the  material  yard  the 
tramp  heard  a  car  coming  up  behind  him.  It 
was  a  six-cylinder  roadster,  and  its  motor  was 
missing  badly. 

He  gave  the  automobile  passing  room  when  it 
came  along,  glancing  up  to  note  that  its  single 
occupant  was  a  big,  bearded  man,  wearing  his 
gray  tweeds  as  one  to  whom  clothes  were  merely 
a  convenience.  He  was  chewing  a  black  cigar, 
and  the  unoccupied  side  of  his  mouth  was  busy 
at  the  passing  moment  heaping  objurgations  upon 
the  limping  motor.  A  hundred  yards  farther  along 
the  motor  gave  a  spasmodic  gasp  and  stopped. 

59 


The  Real  Man 

When  the  young  tramp  came  up,  the  big  man 
had  climbed  out  and  had  the  hood  open.  What 
he  was  saying  to  the  stalled  motor  was  picturesque 
enough  to  make  the  young  man  stop  and  grin 
appreciatively. 

"Gone  bad  on  you  ?"  he  inquired. 

Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin,  the  Timanyoni's 
largest  landowner,  and  a  breeder  of  fine  horses 
who  tolerated  motor-cars  only  because  they  could 
be  driven  hard  and  were  insensate  and  fit  sub- 
jects for  abusive  language,  took  his  head  out  of 
the  hood. 

"The  third  time  this  morning,,,  he  snapped. 
"I'd  rather  drive  a  team  of  wind-broken  mus- 
tangs, any  day  in  the  year!" 

"I  used  to  drive  a  car  a  while  back,"  said  the 
tramp.     "Let  me  look  her  over." 

The  colonel  stood  aside,  wiping  his  hands  on  a 
piece  of  waste,  while  the  young  man  sought  for 
the  trouble.  It  was  found  presently  in  a  loosened 
magneto  wire;  found  and  cleverly  corrected. 
The  tramp  went  around  in  front  and  spun  the 
motor,  and  when  it  had  been  throttled  down, 
Colonel  Baldwin  had  his  hand  in  his  pocket. 

"That's  something  like,"  he  said.  "The  garage 
man  said  it  was  carbon.  You  take  hold  as  if  you 
knew  how.    What's  your  fee?" 

60 


The  High  Hills 

The  tramp  shook  his  head  and  smiled  good- 
naturedly. 

"Nothing;  for  a  bit  of  neighborly  help  like 
that." 

The  colonel  put  his  coat  on,  and  in  the  act  took 
a  better  measure  of  the  stalwart  young  fellow 
who  looked  like  a  hobo  and  talked  and  behaved 
like  a  gentleman.  Colonel  Dexter  was  a  fairly 
shrewd  judge  of  men,  and  he  knew  that  the 
tramping  brotherhood  divides  itself  pretty  evenly 
on  a  distinct  line  of  cleavage,  with  the  born  va- 
grant on  one  side  and  the  man  out  of  work  on 
the  other. 

"You  are  hiking  out  to  the  dam?"  he  asked 
brusquely. 

"I  am  headed  that  way,  yes,"  was  the  equally 
crisp  rejoinder. 

"Hunting  a  job?" 

"Just  that." 

"What  sort  of  a  job?" 

"Anything  that  may  happen  to  be  in  sight." 

"That  usually  means  a  pick  and  shovel  or  a 
wheelbarrow  on  a  construction  job.  We're  need- 
ing quarrymen  and  concrete  handlers,  and  we 
could  use  a  few  more  rough  carpenters  on  the 
forms.     But  there  isn't  much  office  work." 

The  tramp  looked  up  quickly. 
61 


The  Real  Man 

"What  makes  you  think  I'm  hunting  for  an 
office  job  ?"  he  queried. 

"Your  hands,"  said  the  colonel  shortly. 

The  young  man  looked  at  his  hands  thought- 
fully. They  were  dirty  again  from  the  tinkering 
with  the  motor,  but  the  inspection  went  deeper 
than  the  grime. 

"I'm  not  afraid  of  the  pick  and  shovel,  or  the 
wheelbarrow,  and  on  some  accounts  I  guess  they'd 
be  good  for  me.  But  on  the  other  hand,  perhaps 
it  is  a  pity  to  spoil  a  middling  good  office  man  to 
make  an  indifferent  day-laborer — to  say  nothing 
of  knocking  some  honest  fellow  out  of  the  only 
job  he  knows  how  to  do." 

Colonel  Baldwin  swung  in  behind  the  steering- 
wheel  of  the  roadster  and  held  a  fresh  match  to 
the  black  cigar.  Though  he  was  from  Missouri, 
he  had  lived  long  enough  in  the  high  hills  to  know 
better  than  to  judge  any  man  altogether  by  out- 
ward appearances. 

"Climb  in,"  he  said,  indicating  the  vacant  seat 
at  his  side.  "I'm  the  president  of  the  ditch  com- 
pany. Perhaps  Williams  may  be  able  to  use  you; 
but  your  chances  for  office  work  would  be  ten  to 
one  in  the  town." 

"I  don't  care  to  live  in  the  town,"  said  the 
man  out  of  work,  mounting  to  the  proffered  seat; 

62 


The  High  Hills 

and  past  that  the  big  roadster  leaped  away  up  the 
road  and  the  roar  of  the  rejuvenated  motor  made 
further  speech  impossible. 

It  was  a  full  fortnight  or  more  after  this  motor- 
tinkering  incident  on  the  hill  road  to  the  dam, 
when  Williams,  chief  engineer  of  the  ditch  proj- 
ect, met  President  Baldwin  in  the  Brewster 
offices  of  the  ditch  company  and  spent  a  busy 
hour  with  the  colonel  going  over  the  contractors' 
estimates  for  the  month  in  prospect.  In  an  in- 
terval of  the  business  talk,  Baldwin  remembered 
the  good-looking  young  tramp  who  had  wanted 
a  job. 

"Oh,  yes;  I  knew  there  was  something  else 
that  I  wanted  to  ask  you,"  he  said.  "How  about 
the  young  fellow  that  I  unloaded  on  you  a  couple 
of  weeks  ago  ?    Did  he  make  good  ?" 

"Who— Smith?" 

"Yes;   if  that's  his  name." 

The  engineer's  left  eyelid  had  a  quizzical  droop 
when  he  said  dryly:  "It's  the  name  he  goes  by 
in  camp;  'John  Smith.'  I  haven't  asked  him  his 
other  name." 

The  ranchman  president  matched  the  drooping 
eyelid  of  unbelief  with  a  sober  smile.  "I  thought 
he  looked  as  if  he  might  be  out  here  for  his  health — 

63 


The  Real  Man 

like  a  good  many  other  fellows  who  have  no  partic- 
ular use  for  a  doctor.     How  is  he  making  it  ?" 

The  engineer,  a  hard-bitted  man  with  the  prog- 
nathous lower  jaw  characterizing  the  tribe  of  those 
who  accomplish  things,  thrust  his  hands  into  his 
pockets  and  walked  to  the  window  to  look  down 
into  the  Brewster  street.  When  he  turned  to 
face  Baldwin  again,  it  was  to  say:  "That  young 
fellow  is  a  wonder,  Colonel.  I  put  him  into  the 
quarry  at  first,  as  you  suggested,  and  in  three 
days  he  had  revolutionized  things  to  the  tune  of 
a  twenty-per-cent  saving  in  production  costs. 
Then  I  gave  him  a  hack  at  the  concrete-mixers, 
and  he's  making  good  again  in  the  cost  reduction. 
That  seems  to  be  his  specialty/' 

The  president  nodded  and  was  sufficiently  in- 
terested to  follow  up  what  had  been  merely  a 
casual  inquiry. 

"What  are  you  calling  him  now? — a  better- 
ment engineer  ?  You  know  your  first  guess  was 
that  he  was  somebody's  bookkeeper  out  of  a 
job." 

Williams  wagged  his  head. 

"He's  a  three-cornered  puzzle  to  me,  yet.  He 
isn't  an  engineer,  but  when  you  drag  a  bunch  of 
cost  money  up  the  trail,  he  goes  after  it  like  a  dog 
after  a  rabbit.    I'm  not  anxious  to  lose  him,  but  I 

64 


The  High  Hills 

really  believe  you  could  make  better  use  of  him 
here  in  the  town  office  than  I  can  on  the  job." 

Baldwin  was  shaking  his  head  dubiously. 

"I'm  afraid  he'd  have  to  loosen  up  on  his 
record  a  little  before  we  could  bring  him  in  here. 
Badly  as  we're  needing  a  money  man,  we  can 
hardly  afford  to  put  a  'John  Smith'  into  the 
saddle — at  least  not  without  knowing  what  his 
other  name  used  to  be." 

"No;  of  course  not.  I  guess,  after  all,  he's 
only  a  'lame  duck,'  like  a  good  many  of  the  rest  of 
them.  Day  before  yesterday,  Burdell,  the  deputy 
sheriff,  was  out  at  the  camp  looking  the  gangs 
over  for  the  fellow  who  broke  into  Lannigan's 
place  last  Saturday  night.  When  he  came  into 
the  office  Smith  was  busy  with  an  estimate,  and 
Burdell  went  up  and  touched  him  on  the  shoulder, 
just  to  let  him  know  that  it  was  time  to  wake  up. 
Suffering  cats !  It  took  three  of  us  to  keep  him 
from  breaking  Burdell  in  two  and  throwing  him 
out  of  the  window  !" 

"That  looks  rather  bad,"  was  the  president's 
comment.  Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin  had  been 
the  first  regularly  elected  sheriff  of  Timanyoni 
County  in  the  early  days  and  he  knew  the  symp- 
toms. "Was  Burdell  wearing  his  star  where  it 
could  be  seen  ?" 

65 


The  Real  Man 

The  engineer  nodded. 

"What  explanation  did  Smith  make?" 

"Oh,  he  apologized  like  a  gentleman,  and  said 
he  was  subject  to  little  nervous  attacks  like  that 
when  anybody  touched  him  unexpectedly.  He 
took  Burdell  over  to  Pete  Simm's  shack  saloon 
and  bought  him  a  drink.  Perkins,  the  time- 
keeper, says  he's  going  to  get  a  megaphone  so 
he  can  give  due  notice  in  advance  when  he 
wants  to  call  Smith's  attention." 

The  colonel  pulled  out  a  drawer  in  the  desk, 
found  his  box  of  diplomatic  cigars  and  passed  it 
to  the  engineer,  saying:  "Light  up  a  sure-enough 
good  one,  and  tell  me  what  you  think  Smith  has 
been  doing  back  yonder  in  the  other  country." 

Williams  took  the  cigar  but  he  shied  at  the 
conundrum. 

"Ask  me  something  easy,"  he  said.  "I've 
stacked  up  a  few  guesses.  He's  from  the  Middle 
West — as  the  Bible  says,  his  'speech  bewrayeth' 
him — and  he's  had  a  good  job  of  some  kind; 
the  kind  that  required  him  to  keep  abreast  of 
things.  If  there's  anything  in  looks,  you'd  say 
he  wasn't  a  thief  or  an  embezzler,  and  yet  it's 
pretty  apparent  thajt  he's  been  used  to  handling 
money  in  chunks  and  making  it  work  for  its 
living.     I've  put  it  up  that  there's  a  woman  in  it. 

66 


The  High  Hills 

Perhaps  the  other  fellow  got  in  his  way,  or  came 
up  behind  him  and  touched  him  unexpectedly, 
or  something  of  that  sort.  Anyway,  I'm  not  going 
to  believe  he's  a  crooked  crook  until  I  have  to." 

Colonel  Baldwin  helped  himself  to  one  of  his 
own  cigars,  and  the  talk  went  back  to  business. 
In  the  irrigation  project,  Williams  was  a  stock- 
holder as  well  as  the  chief  of  construction,  and 
Baldwin  had  more  than  once  found  him  a  safe 
adviser.  There  was  need  for  counsel.  The  Timan- 
yoni  Ditch  Company  was  in  a  rather  hazardous 
condition  financially,  and  the  president  and  Wil- 
liams rarely  met  without  coming  sooner  or  later 
to  a  threshing  out  of  the  situation. 

The  difficulties  were  those  which  are  apt  to 
confront  a  small  and  local  enterprise  when  it  is 
so  unfortunate  as  to  get  in  the  way  of  larger  under- 
takings. Colonel  Baldwin,  and  a  group  of  his 
neighbors  on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  were 
reformed  cattlemen  and  horse  breeders.  Instead 
of  drifting  farther  west  in  advance  of  the  in- 
coming tide  of  population  following  the  coming 
of  the  railroad,  they  had  availed  themselves  of 
their  homestead  rights  and  had  taken  up  much 
of  the  grass-land  in  the  favorable  valleys,  irrigat- 
ing it  at  first  with  water  taken  out  of  the  river  in 
private  or  neighborhood  ditches. 

67 


The  Real  Man 

Later  on  came  the  sheep-feeding  period,  and 
after  that  the  utilization  of  larger  crop-raising 
areas.  The  small  ditches  proving  inadequate  for 
these,  Colonel  Baldwin  had  formed  a  stock  com- 
pany among  his  neighbors  in  the  grass-lands  and 
his  friends  in  Brewster  for  the  building  of  a  sub- 
stantial dam  in  the  eastern  hills.  The  project 
had  seemed  simple  enough  in  the  beginning.  The 
stock  was  sold  for  cash  and  each  stockholder 
would  be  a  participating  user  of  the  water.  Wil- 
liams, who  had  been  a  United  States  reclamation 
man  before  he  came  to  the  Timanyoni,  had  made 
careful  estimates,  and  the  stock  subscription  pro- 
vided money  enough  to  cover  the  cost  of  the  dam 
and  the  main  ditch. 

After  some  little  bargaining,  the  dam  site  and 
the  overflow  land  for  the  reservoir  lake  had  been 
secured,  and  the  work  was  begun.  Out  of  a  clear 
sky,  however,  came  trouble  and  harassment. 
Alien  holders  of  mining  claims  in  the  reservoir 
area  turned  up  and  demanded  damages.  Some 
few  homesteaders  who  had  promised  to  sign 
quitclaims  changed  their  minds  and  sued  for 
relief,  and  after  the  work  was  well  under  way  it 
appeared  that  there  was  a  cloud  on  the  title  of 
the  dam  site  itself.  All  of  these  clashings  were 
carried    into   court,    and    the   rancher   promoters 

68 


The  High  Hills 

found  themselves  confronting  invisible  enemies 
and  obstacle-raisers  at  every  turn. 

The  legal  fight,  as  they  soon  found  out,  cost 
much  money  in  every  phase  of  it;  and  now,  when 
the  dam  was  scarcely  more  than  half  completed, 
a  practically  empty  treasury  was  staring  them  in 
the  face.  This  was  the  situation  which  called 
for  its  regular  threshing  out  in  every  conference 
between  Colonel  Baldwin  and  his  chief  of  con- 
struction. There  was  no  disguising  the  fact  that 
a  crisis  was  approaching,  a  financial  crisis  which 
no  one  among  the  amateur  promoters  was  big 
enough  to  cope  with. 

"We've  got  to  go  in  deeper,  Colonel;  there  is 
nothing  else  to  do,"  was  the  engineer's  summing 
up  of  the  matter  at  the  close  of  the  conference. 
"The  snow  is  melting  pretty  rapidly  on  the  range 
now,  and  when  we  get  the  June  rise  we'll  stand  to 
lose  everything  we  have  if  we  can't  keep  every 
wheel  turning  to  get  ready  for  the  high  water." 

Baldwin  was  holding  his  cigar  between  his  fin- 
gers and  scowling  at  it  as  if  it  had  mortally  ofFended 
him. 

"Assessments  on  the  stock,  you  mean?"  he 
said.  "I'm  afraid  our  crowd  won't  stand  for 
that.  A  good  part  of  it  is  ready  to  lie  down  in 
the  harness  right  now." 

69 


The  Real  Man 

"How  about  a  bond  issue  ?"  asked  the  engineer. 
"Lord  of  heavens  !  What  do  we,  or  any  of  us, 
know  about  bond  issues  ?  Why,  we  knew  barely 
enough  about  the  business  at  the  start  to  chip  in 
together  and  buy  us  a  charter  and  go  to  work  on 
a  plan  a  little  bit  bigger  than  the  neighborhood 
ditch  idea.  You  couldn't  float  bonds  in  Timan- 
yoni  Park,  and  we're  none  of  us  foxy  enough  to 
go  East  and  float  'em." 

"I  guess  that's  right,  too,"  admitted  Williams. 
"Besides,  with  the  stock  gone  off  the  way  it  has, 
it  would  take  a  mighty  fine-haired  financial  sharp 
to  sell  bonds." 

"What's  that?"  demanded  the  president. 
"Who's  been  selling  any  stock?" 

"Buck  Gardner,  for  one;  and  that  man  Boi- 
ling, up  at  the  head  of  Little  Creek,  for  another. 
Maxwell,  the  railroad  superintendent,  told  me 
about  it,  and  he  says  that  the  price  offered,  and 
accepted,  was  thirty-nine." 

"  Dad  burn  a  cuss  with  a  yellow  streak  in  him  !" 
rasped  the  Missouri  colonel.  "We  had  a  fair  and 
square  agreement  among  ourselves  that  if  any- 
body got  scared  he  was  to  give  the  rest  of  us  a 
chance  to  buy  him  out.  Who  bought  from  these 
welshers  ?" 

"Maxwell  didn't  know  that.     He  said  it  was 

70 


The  High  Hills 

done  through  Kinzie's  bank.  From  what  Fve 
heard  on  the  outside,  I'm  inclined  to  suspect  that 
Crawford  Stanton  was  the  buyer." 

"Stanton,  the  real-estate  man?" 

"The  same." 

Again  the  president  stared  thoughtfully  at  the 
glowing  end  of  his  cigar. 

"There's  another  of  the  confounded  mysteries," 
he  growled.  "Who  is  Crawford  Stanton,  and 
what  is  he  here  for  ?  I  know  what  he  advertises, 
but  everybody  in  Brewster  knows  that  he  hasn't 
made  a  living  dollar  in  real  estate  since  he  came 
here  last  winter.  Williams,  do  you  know,  I'm 
beginning  to  suspect  that  there  is  a  mighty  big 
nigger  in  our  little  wood-pile?" 

"You  mean  that  all  these  stubborn  hold-ups 
have  been  bought  and  paid  for  ?  You'll  re- 
member that  is  what  Billy  Starbuck  tried  to  tell 
us  when  the  first  of  the  missing  mining-claim 
owners  began  to  shout  at  us." 

"Starbuck  has  a  long  head,  and  what  he  doesn't 
know  about  mining  claims  in  this  part  of  the 
country  wouldn't  fill  a  very  big  book.  I  re- 
member he  said  there  had  never  been  any  pros- 
pecting done  in  the  upper  Timanyoni  gulches, 
and  now  you'd  think  half  the  people  in  the  United 
States  had  been  nosing  around  up  there  with  a 

71 


The  Real  Man 

pick  and  shovel  at  one  time  or  another.  But  it 
was  a  thing  that  Starbuck  told  me  no  longer  ago 
than  yesterday  that  set  me  to  thinking,"  Bald- 
win went  on.  "As  you  know,  the  old  Escalante 
Spanish  Grant  corners  over  in  the  western  part 
of  this  park.  When  the  old  grants  were  made, 
they  were  ruled  off  on  the  map  without  reference 
to  mountain  ranges  or  other  natural  barriers. " 

Williams  nodded. 

"Well,  as  I  say,  one  corner  of  the  Escalante 
reaches  over  the  Hophras  and  out  into  the  park, 
covering  about  eight  or  ten  square  miles  of  the 
territory  just  beyond  us  on  our  side  of  the  river. 
Starbuck  told  me  yesterday  that  a  big  Eastern 
colonization  company  had  got  a  bill  through  Con- 
gress alienating  that  tract." 

The  chief  of  construction  bounded  out  of  his 
chair  and  began  to  walk  the  floor.  "  By  George  !" 
he  said;  and  again:  "By  George!  That's  what 
we're  up  against,  Colonel !  Where  will  those 
fellows  get  the  water  for  their  land  ?  There  is 
no  site  for  a  dam  lower  down  than  ours,  and,  any- 
way, that  land  lies  too  high  to  be  watered  by  any- 
thing but  a  high-line  ditch!" 

"Nice  little  brace  game,  isn't  it?"  growled 
Baldwin.  "If  we  hadn't  been  a  lot  of  hayseed 
amateurs,  we  might  have  found  out  long  ago  that 

72 


The  High  Hills 

some  one  was  running  in  a  cold  deck  on  us.  What's 
your  notion  ?  Are  we  done  up,  world  without 
end?" 

Williams's  laugh  was  grim. 

"What  we  need,  Colonel,  is  to  go  out  on  the 
street  and  yell  for  a  doctor,"  he  said.  "It's  be- 
ginning to  look  as  if  we  had  acquired  a  pretty 
bad  case  of  malignant  strangle-itis." 

Baldwin  ran  his  fingers  through  his  hair  and 
admitted  that  he  had  lost  his  sense  of  humor. 

"It's  hell,  Williams,"  he  said  soberly.  "You 
know  how  recklessly  I've  waded  into  this  thing — ■ 
how  recklessly  we've  all  gone  into  it  for  that 
matter.  I'll  come  down  like  a  man  and  admit 
that  it  has  climbed  up  the  ladder  to  a  place  where 
I  can't  reach  it.  This  Eastern  crowd  is  trying  to 
freeze  us  out,  to  get  our  dam  and  reservoir  and 
ditch  rights  for  their  Escalante  scheme.  When 
they  do,  they'll  turn  around  and  sell  us  water — 
at  fifty  dollars  an  inch,  or  something  like  that!" 

"What  breaks  my  heart  is  that  we  haven't 
been  able  to  surround  the  sure-enough  fact  while 
there  was  still  time  to  do  something,"  lamented 
the  ex-reclamation  man.  "The  Lord  knows  it's 
been  plain  enough,  with  Stanton  right  here  on 
the  ground,  and  probably  every  one  of  the  inter- 
ferences traceable  directly  to  him.     He  has  begun 

73 


The  Real  Man 

to  close  in  on  us;  his  purchase  of  the  Gardner 
and  Boiling  stockholdings  is  the  beginning  of  the 
end.  You  know  as  well  as  I  do,  Colonel,  what  a 
contagious  disease  'the  yellows'  is.  Others  will 
get  it,  and  the  first  thing  we  know,  Stanton  will 
own  a  majority  of  the  stock  and  be  voting  us  all 
out  of  a  job.  You'll  have  to  come  around  to  my 
suggestion,  after  all,  and  advertise  for  a  doctor." 
It  was  said  of  the  chief  of  construction  that  he 
would  have  joked  on  his  death-bed,  and,  as  a 
follower  for  the  joke,  he  added:  "Why  don't 
you  call  Smith  in  and  give  him  the  job  ?" 

"Smith  be  damned,"  growled  the  colonel,  who, 
as  we  have  seen,  had  become  completely  color- 
blind on  the  sense-of-humor  side. 

"I  wouldn't  put  it  beyond  him  to  develop  into 
the  young  Napoleon  of  finance  that  we  seem  to 
be  needing  just  now,"  Williams  went  on,  carry- 
ing the  jest  to  its  legitimate  conclusion. 

Baldwin,  like  other  self-made  promoters  in  their 
day  of  trouble,  was  in  the  condition  of  the  drown- 
ing man  who  catches  at  straws. 

"You  don't  really  mean  that,  Williams,  do 
you  ?"  he  asked. 

"No,  I  didn't  mean  it  when  I  said  it,"  was  the 
engineer's  admission;  "I  was  only  trying  to  get 
a  rise  out  of  you.     But  really,  Colonel,  on  second 

74 


The  High  Hills 

thought  I  don't  know  but  it  is  worth  considering. 
As  I  say,  Smith  seems  to  know  the  money  game 
from  start  to  finish.  What  is  better  still,  he  is  a 
fighter  from  the  word  go — what  you  might  call 
a  joyous  fighter.  Suppose  you  drive  out  to- 
morrow or  next  day  and  pry  into  him  a  little. " 

The  rancher  president  had  relapsed  once  more 
into  the  slough  of  discouragement. 

"You  are  merely  grabbing  for  handholds,  Bart- 
ley — as  I  was  a  minute  ago.  We  are  in  a  bad  row 
of  stumps  when  we  can  sit  here  and  talk  seriously 
about  roping  down  a  young  hobo  and  putting 
him  into  the  financial  harness.  Let's  go  around 
to  Frascati's  and  eat  before  you  go  back  to  camp. 
It's  bread-time,  anyway." 

The  chief  of  construction  said  no  more  about 
his  joking  suggestion  at  the  moment,  but  when 
they  were  walking  around  the  square  to  the 
Brewster  Delmonico's  he  went  back  to  the  dropped 
subject  in  all  seriousness,  saying:  "Just  the  same, 
I  wish  you  could  know  Smith  and  size  him  up 
as  I  have.  I  can't  help  believing,  some  way,  that 
he's  all  to  the  good." 


75 


The  Specialist 

THOUGH  the  matter  of  calling  in  an  expert 
doctor  of  finance  to  diagnose  the  alarming 
symptoms  in  Timanyoni  Ditch  had  been  left  in- 
determinate in  the  talk  between  Colonel  Baldwin 
and  himself,  Williams  did  not  let  it  go  entirely 
by  default.  On  the  day  following  the  Brewster 
office  conference  the  engineer  sent  for  Smith,  who 
was  checking  the  output  of  the  crushers  at  the 
quarry,  and  a  little  later  the  "betterment"  man 
presented  himself  at  the  door  of  the  corrugated- 
iron  shack  which  served  as  a  field  office  for  the 
chief. 

Williams  looked  the  cost-cutter  over  as  he  stood 
in  the  doorway.  Smith  was  thriving  and  expand- 
ing handsomely  in  the  new  environment.  He  had 
let  his  beard  grow  and  it  was  now  long  enough  to 
be  trimmed  to  a  point.  The  travel-broken  clothes 
had  been  exchanged  for  working  khaki,  with  lace- 
boots  and  leggings,  and  the  workman's  cap  had 
given  place  to  the  campaign  felt  of  the  engineers. 
Though  he  had  been  less  than  a  month  on  the 

76 


The  Specialist 

job,  he  was  already  beginning  to  tan  and  toughen 
under  the  healthy  outdoor  work — to  roughen,  as 
well,  his  late  fellow  members  of  the  Lawrence- 
ville  Cotillon  Club  might  have  said,  since  he  had 
fought  three  pitched  battles  with  as  many  of  the 
camp  bullies,  and  had  in  each  of  them  approved 
himself  a  man  of  his  hands  who  could  not  only 
take  punishment,  but  could  hammer  an  oppo- 
nent swiftly  and  neatly  into  any  desired  state  of 
subjection. 

"Come  in  here  and  sit  down;  I  want  to  talk 
to  you,"  was  the  way  Williams  began  it;  and 
after  Smith  had  found  a  chair  and  had  lighted  a 
gift  cigar  from  the  headquarters  desk-box,  the 
chief  went  on:  "Say,  Smith,  you're  too  good  a 
man  for  anything  I've  got  for  you  here.  Haven't 
you  realized  that?" 

Smith  pulled  a  memorandum-book  from  his 
hip  pocket  and  ran  his  eye  over  the  private  record 
he  had  been  keeping. 

"I've  shown  you  how  to  effect  a  few  little 
savings  which  total  up  something  like  fifteen  per 
cent  of  your  cost  of  production  and  operation," 
he  said.  "Don't  you  think  I'm  earning  my 
wages  r 

"That's  all  right;  I've  been  keeping  tab,  too, 
and  I  know  what  you're  doing.     But  you  are  not 

77 


The  Real  Man 

beginning  to  earn  what  you  ought  to,  either 
for  yourself  or  the  company/'  put  in  the  chief 
shrewdly.  And  then:  "Loosen  up,  Smith,  and 
tell  me  something  about  yourself.  Who  are  you, 
and  where  do  you  come  from,  and  what  sort  of  a 
job  have  you  been  holding  down?" 

Smith's  reply  was  as  surprising  as  it  was  seem- 
ingly irrelevant. 

"If  you're  not  too  busy,  Mr.  Williams,  I  guess 
you'd  better  make  out  my  time-check,"  he  said 
quietly. 

Williams  took  a  reflective  half-minute  for  con- 
sideration, turning  the  sudden  request  over  de- 
liberately in  his  mind,  as  his  habit  was. 

"I  suppose,  by  that  you  mean  that  you'll  quit 
before  you  will  consent  to  open  up  on  your  rec- 
ord ?"  he  assumed. 

"You've  guessed  it,"  said  the  man  who  had 
sealed  the  book  of  his  past. 

Again  Williams  took  a  little  time.  It  was  dis- 
couraging to  have  his  own  and  the  colonel's  pre- 
figurings  as  to  Smith's  probable  state  and  stand- 
ing so  promptly  verified. 

"I  suppose  you  know  the  plain  inference  you're 
leaving,  when  you  say  a  thing  like  that  ?" 

Smith  made  the  sign  of  assent.  "It  leaves  you 
entirely  at  liberty  to  finish  out  the  story  to  suit 

78 


The  Specialist 

yourself,"  he  admitted,  adding:  "The  back  num- 
bers— my  back  numbers — are  my  own,  Mr.  Wil- 
liams. I've  kept  a  file  of  them,  as  everybody  does, 
but  I  don't  have  to  produce  it  on  request." 

"Of  course,  there's  nothing  compulsory  about 
your  producing  it.  But  unless  you  are  what  they 
call  in  this  country  a  ' crooked'  crook,  you  are 
standing  in  your  own  light.  You  have  such  a 
staving  good  head  for  figures  and  finances  that  it 
seems  a  pity  for  you  to  be  wasting  it  here  on  an 
undergraduate's  job  in  cost-cutting.  Any  young 
fellow  just  out  of  a  technical  school  could  do 
what  you're  doing  in  the  way  of  paring  down  ex- 
penses." 

The  cost-cutter's  smile  was  mildly  incredulous. 

"Nobody  seemed  to  be  doing  it  before  I  came," 
he  offered. 

"No,"  Williams  allowed,  "that's  the  fact.  To 
tell  the  plain  truth,  we've  had  bigger  things  to 
wrestle  with;  and  we  have  them  yet,  for  that 
matter — enough  of  them  to  go  all  around  the  job 
twice  and  tie  in  a  bow-knot." 

"Finances?"  queried  Smith,  feeling  some  of 
the  back-number  instincts  stirring  within  him. 

The  chief  engineer  nodded;  then  he  looked  up 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  closely  set  gray  eyes.  "If 
you'll  tell  me  why  you  tried  to  kill  Burdell  the 

79 


The  Real  Man 

other  day,  maybe  I'll  open  up  the  record — our 
record — for  you." 

This  time  the  cost-cutter's  smile  was  good- 
naturedly  derisive,  and  it  ignored  the  reference 
to  Burdell. 

"You  don't  have  to  open  up  your  record — for 
me;  it's  the  talk  of  the  camp.  You  people  are 
undercapitalized — to  boil  it  down  into  one  word. 
Isn't  that  about  the  way  it  sizes  up  ?" 

"That  is  the  way  it  has  turned  out;  though 
we  had  capital  enough  to  begin  with.  We've 
been  bled  to  death  by  damage  suits." 

Smith  shook  his  head.  "Why  haven't  you 
hired  a  first-class  attorney,  Mr.  Williams?" 

"We've  had  the  best  we  could  find,  but  the 
other  fellows  have  beaten  us  to  it,  every  time. 
But  the  legal  end  of  it  hasn't  been  the  whole 
thing  or  the  biggest  part  of  it.  What  we  are 
needing  most  is  a  man  who  knows  a  little  some- 
thing about  corporation  fights  and  high  finance." 
And  at  this  the  engineer  forgot  the  Smith  dis- 
abilities, real  or  inferential,  and  went  on  to  explain 
in  detail  the  peculiar  helplessness  of  the  Timan- 
yoni  Company  as  the  antagonist  of  the  as  yet 
unnamed  land  and  irrigation  trust. 

Smith  heard  him  through,  nodding  under- 
standing^ when  the  tale  was  told. 

80 


The  Specialist 

"It's  the  old  story  of  the  big  fish  swallowing 
the  little  one;  so  old  that  there  is  no  longer  any 
saving  touch  of  novelty  in  it,"  he  commented. 
"I've  been  wondering  if  there  wasn't  something 
of  that  kind  in  your  background.  And  you  say 
you  haven't  any  Belmonts  or  Morgans  or  Rocke- 
fellers in  your  company  ?" 

"We  have  a  bunch  of  rather  badly  scared-up 
ranch  owners  and  local  people,  with  Colonel 
Baldwin  in  command,  and  that's  all.  The  colonel 
is  a  fighting  man,  all  right,  and  he  can  shoot  as 
straight  as  anybody,  when  you  have  shown  him 
what  to  shoot  at.  But  he  is  outclassed,  like  all 
the  rest  of  us,  when  it  comes  to  a  game  of  financial 
freeze-out.  And  that  is  what  we  are  up  against, 
I'm  afraid." 

"There  isn't  the  slightest  doubt  in  the  world 
about  that,"  said  the  one  who  had  been  called 
in  as  an  expert.  "What  I  can't  understand  is 
why  some  of  you  didn't  size  the  situation  up 
long  ago — before  it  got  into  its  present  desperate 
shape.  You  are  at  the  beginning  of  the  end,  now. 
They've  caught  you  with  an  empty  treasury,  and 
these  stock  sales  you  speak  of  prove  that  they 
have  already  begun  to  swallow  you  by  littles. 
Timanyoni  Common — I  suppose  you  haven't  any 
Preferred — at  thirty-nine  is  an  excellent  gamble 

81 


The  Real  Man 

for  any  group  of  men  who  can  see  their  way  clear 
to  buying  the  control.  With  an  eager  market  for 
the  water — and  they  can  sell  the  water  to  you 
people,  even  if  they  don't  put  their  own  Escalante 
project  through — the  stock  can  be  pushed  to  par 
and  beyond,  as  it  will  be  after  you  folks  are  all 
safely  frozen  out.  More  than  that,  they  can 
charge  you  enough,  for  the  water  youVe  got  to 
have,  to  finance  the  Escalante  scheme  and  pay  all 
the  bills;  and  their  investment,  at  the  present 
market,  will  be  only  thirty-nine  cents  in  the 
dollar.    It's  a  neat  little  play." 

Williams  was  by  this  time  far  past  remembering 
that  his  adviser  was  a  man  with  a  possible  alias 
and  presumably  a  fugitive  from  justice. 

"Can't  something  be  done,  Smith?  You've 
had  experience  in  these  things;  your  talk  shows  it. 
Have  we  got  to  stand  still  and  be  shot  to  pieces  ?" 

"The  necessity  remains  to  be  demonstrated. 
But  you  will  be  shot  to  pieces,  to  a  dead  moral 
certainty,  if  you  don't  put  somebody  on  deck 
with  the  necessary  brains,  and  do  it  quickly," 
said  Smith  with  frank  bluntness. 

"Hold  on,"  protested  the  engineer.  "Every 
man  to  his  trade.  When  I  said  that  we  had  no- 
body but  the  neighbors  and  our  friends  in  the 
company,  I  didn't  mean  to  give  the  impression 

82 


The  Specialist 

that  they  were  either  dolts  or  chuckleheads.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  a  pretty  level-headed 
bunch  of  men  in  Timanyoni  Ditch — though  I'll 
admit  that  some  of  them  are  nervous  enough, 
just  now,  to  want  to  get  out  on  almost  any  terms. 
What  I  meant  to  say  was  that  they  don't  happen 
to  be  up  in  all  the  crooks  and  turnings  of  the 
high-finance  buccaneers." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  reflect  upon  Colonel  Bald- 
win and  his  friends,"  rejoined  the  ex-cashier  good- 
naturedly.  "It  is  nothing  especially  discrediting 
to  them  that  they  are  not  up  in  all  the  tricks  of  a 
trade  which  is  not  theirs.  The  financing  of  a 
scheme  like  this  has  come  to  be  a  business  by 
itself,  Mr.  Williams,  and  it  is  hardly  to  be  ex- 
pected that  a  group  of  inexperienced  men  could 
do  it  successfully." 

"I  know  that,  blessed  well.  That  is  what  I 
said  from  the  beginning,  and  I  think  Colonel 
Baldwin  leaned  that  way,  too.  But  it  seemed 
like  a  very  simple  undertaking.  A  number  of 
stockmen  and  crop  growers  wanted  a  dam  and  a 
ditch,  and  they  had  the  money  to  pay  for  them. 
That  seemed  to  be  all  there  was  to  it  in  the 
beginning." 

Smith  was  leaning  back  in  his  chair  and  smok- 
ing reflectively. 

83 


The  Real  Man 

"Did  you  call  me  in  here  to  get  an  expert 
opinion?"  he  asked,  half  humorously. 

"Something  of  that  kind — yes;  just  on  the 
bare  chance  that  you  could,  and  would,  give  us 
one,"  Williams  admitted. 

"Well,  I'm  hardly  an  expert,"  was  the  modest 
reply;  "but  if  I  were  in  your  place  I  should  hire 
the  best  financial  scrapper  that  money  could  pay 
for.  I  can't  attempt  to  tell  you  what  such  a  man 
would  do,  but  he  would  at  least  rattle  around  in 
the  box  and  try  to  give  you  a  fighting  chance, 
which  is  more  than  you  seem  to  have  now." 

The  construction  chief  turned  abruptly  upon 
his  cost-cutter. 

"  Keeping  in  mind  what  you  said  a  few  minutes 
ago  about  'back  numbers/  would  it  be  climbing 
over  the  fence  too  far  for  me  to  ask  if  your  ex- 
perience has  been  such  as  would  warrant  you  in 
tackling  a  job  of  this  kind  ?" 

"That  is  a  fair  question,  and  I  can  answer  it 
straight,"  said  the  man  under  fire.  "I've  had 
the  experience." 

"I  thought  so;  and  that  brings  on  more  talk. 
I'm  not  authorized  to  make  you  any  proposal. 
But  Colonel  Baldwin  and  I  were  talking  the 
matter  over  yesterday  and  your  name  was  men- 
tioned.    I  told  the  colonel  that  it  was  very  evi- 

84 


The  Specialist 

dent  that  you  were  accustomed  to  handling  bigger 
financial  matters  than  these  labor-and-material 
cost-cuttings  you've  been  figuring  on  out  here. 
If  the  colonel  should  ask  you  to,  would  you  con- 
sider as  a  possibility  the  taking  of  the  doctor's 
job  on  this  sick  project  of  ours  ?" 

"No,"  was  the  brief  rejoinder. 

"Why  not?" 

Smith  looked  away  out  of  the  one  square  win- 
dow in  the  shack  at  the  busy  scene  on  the  dam 
stagings. 

"Let  us  say  that  I  don't  care  to  mix  and  mingle 
with  my  kind,  Mr.  Williams,  and  let  it  go  at  that," 
he  said. 

"You  are  not  interested  in  that  side  of  it  ?" 

"Interested,  but  not  to  the  point  of  enlisting." 

"You  don't  think  of  anything  that  might  make 
you  change  your  mind  ?" 

"There  is  nothing  that  you  could  offer  which 
would  be  a  sufficient  inducement." 

"Why  isn't  there?" 

"Because  I'm  not  exactly  a  born  simpleton, 
Mr.  Williams.  There  are  a  number  of  reasons 
which  are  purely  personal  to  me,  and  at  least  one 
which  cuts  ice  on  your  side  of  the  pond.  Your 
financial  '  doctor,'  as  you  call  him,  would  have 
to  be  trusted  absolutely  in  the  handling  of  the 

8S 


The  Real  Man 

company's  money  and  its  negotiable  securities. 
You  would  have  a  perfect  right  to  demand  any 
and  every  assurance  of  his  fitness  and  trust- 
worthiness. You  could,  and  should,  put  him 
under  a  fairly  heavy  bond.  I'll  not  go  into  it 
any  deeper  than  to  say  that  I  can't  give  a  bond." 

Williams  took  his  defeat,  if  it  could  be  called 
a  defeat,  without  further  protest. 

"I  thought  it  might  not  be  amiss  to  talk  it  over 
with  you,"  he  said.  "I  don't  know  that  the 
colonel  will  make  any  move,  but  if  he  does,  he 
will  deal  with  you  direct.  You  say  it  is  impossible, 
and  perhaps  it  is.  But  it  won't  do  any  harm  for 
you  to  think  it 'over,  and  if  I  were  you,  I  shouldn't 
burn  all  the  bridges  behind  me.  There  ought  to 
be  considerable  money  in  it  for  the  right  man,  if 
he  succeeds,  and  nothing  much  to  lose  if  he  should 
fail." 

Smith  went  back  to  his  work  in  the  quarry 
with  a  troubled  mind.  The  little  heart-to-heart 
talk  with  Williams  had  been  sharply  depressive. 
It  had  shown  him,  as  nothing  else  could,  how 
limited  for  all  the  remainder  of  his  life  his  chances 
must  be.  That  he  would  be  pursued,  that  de- 
scriptions and  photographs  of  the  ex-cashier  of 
the  Lawrenceville  Bank  and  Trust  Company  were 
already  circulating  from  hand  to  hand  among  the 

86 


The  Specialist 

paid  man-catchers,  he  did  not  doubt  for  a  moment. 
While  he  could  remain  as  a  workman  unit  in  an 
isolated  construction  camp,  there  was  some  little 
hope  that  he  might  be  overlooked.  But  to  be- 
come the  public  character  of  Williams's  sug- 
gestion in  a  peopled  city  was  to  run  to  meet  his 
fate. 

In  a  way  the  tentative  offer  was  a  keen  tempta- 
tion. One  of  the  lustiest  growths  pushing  its  way 
up  through  the  new  soil  of  the  metamorphosis 
was  a  strong  and  mounting  conviction  that  J. 
Montague  Smith,  of  the  Lawrenceville  avatar, 
had  been  only  half  a  man;  was,  at  his  best,  only 
a  pale  shadow  of  the  plain  John  Smith  to  whom 
accident  and  a  momentary  impulse  of  passion  had 
given  birth.  With  a  clear  field  he  would  have 
asked  for  nothing  better  than  a  chance  to  take 
the  leadership  in  the  fight  which  Williams  had 
outlined,  and  the  new  and  elemental  stirrings 
were  telling  him  that  he  could  win  the  fight. 
But  with  a  price  on  his  head  it  was  not  to  be 
thought  of. 

That  night,  when  he  rolled  himself  in  his 
blankets  in  the  bunk  tent,  he  had  renewed  his 
prudent  determination  and  it  was  crystallizing 
itself  in  words. 

"No,  not  for  money  or  gratitude  or  any  other 

87 


The  Real  Man 


argument  they  can  bring  to  bear,"  he  said  to  him- 
self, and  thereupon  fell  asleep  with  the  mistaken 
notion  that  he  had  definitely  pushed  the  tempta- 
tion aside  for  good  and  all. 


VI 

The  Twig 

IT  is  said  that  the  flow  of  a  mighty  river  may 
owe  its  most  radical  change  in  direction  to 
the  chance  thrusting  of  a  twig  into  the  current 
at  some  critical  instant  in  the  rise  or  fall  of  the 
flood.  To  the  reincarnated  Smith,  charting  his 
course  upon  the  conviction  that  his  best  chance 
of  immunity  lay  in  isolation  and  a  careful  avoid- 
ance of  the  peopled  towns,  came  the  diverting 
twig  in  this  wise. 

On  the  second  morning  following  the  unofficial 
talk  with  Bartley  Williams  in  the  iron-sheeted 
headquarters  office  at  the  dam,  a  delayed  con- 
signment of  cement,  steel,  and  commissary  sup- 
plies was  due  at  the  side-track  a  mile  below 
the  camp.  Perkins,  the  timekeeper,  took  the 
telephone  call  from  Brewster  giving  notice  of  the 
shipment,  and  started  the  camp  teams  to  meet 
the  train,  sending  a  few  men  along  to  help  with 
the  unloading.  Later,  he  called  Smith  in  from  the 
quarry  and  gave  him  the  invoices  covering  the 
shipment. 

89 


The  Real  Man 

"I  guess  you'd  better  go  down  to  the  siding 
and  check  this  stuff  in,  so  that  we'll  know  what 
we're  getting,"  was  his  suggestion  to  the  general 
utility  man;  and  Smith  put  the  invoices  into  his 
pocket  and  took  the  road,  a  half-hour  or  more 
behind  the  teams. 

When  the  crookings  of  the  tote-road  let  him 
get  his  first  sight  of  the  side-track,  he  saw  that 
the  train  was  already  in  and  the  mixed  shipment 
of  camp  supplies  had  been  transferred  to  the 
wagons.  A  few  minutes  sufficed  for  the  checking, 
and  since  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  done,  he 
sent  the  unloading  gang  back  to  camp  with  the 
teams,  meaning  to  walk  back,  himself,  after  he 
should  have  seen  the  car  of  steel  and  the  two  cars 
of  cement  kicked  in  at  the  upper  end  of  the  side- 
track. 

While  he  was  waiting  for  the  train  to  pull  up 
and  make  the  shift  he  was  commenting  idly  upon 
the  clumsy  lay-out  of  the  temporary  unloading 
yard,  and  wondering  if  Williams  were  responsible 
for  it.  The  siding  was  on  the  outside  of  a  curve 
and  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  river  bank. 
There  was  scanty  space  for  the  unloading  of 
material,  and  a  good  bit  of  what  there  was  was 
taken  up  by  the  curving  spur  which  led  off  from 
the  siding  to  cross  the  river  on  a  trestle,  and  by 

90 


The  Twig 

the  wagon  road  itself,  which  came  down  a  long 
hill  on  the  south  side  of  the  railroad  and  made 
an  abrupt  turn  to  cross  the  main  track  and  the 
siding  fairly  in  the  midst  of  things. 

As  the  long  train  pulled  up  to  clear  the  road 
crossing,  Smith  stepped  back  and  stood  between 
the  two  tracks.  A  moment  later  the  cut  was 
made,  and  the  forward  section  of  the  train  went 
on  to  set  the  three  loaded  cars  out  at  the  upper 
switch,  leaving  the  rear  half  standing  on  the  main 
line.  From  his  position  between  the  tracks  there 
was  a  clear  view  past  the  caboose  at  the  end  of 
the  halted  section  and  beyond,  to  the  road  crossing 
and  the  steep  grade  down  which  the  dusty  wagon 
road  made  a  rough  gash  in  the  shoulder  of  the 
mountain  spur  which  had  crowded  it  from  the 
river-bank  side  of  the  railroad  right  of  way.  At 
the  bottom  of  the  steep  grade,  where  the  road 
swerved  to  cross  the  two  tracks,  there  was  a  little 
sag;  and  between  the  sag  and  the  crossing  a  sharp 
bit  of  up-grade  made  to  gain  the  level  of  the 
railroad  embankment. 

One  of  the  men  of  the  unloading  gang,  a  leather- 
faced  grade  shoveller  who  had  helped  to  build  the 
Nevada  Short  Line,  had  lagged  behind  the  de- 
parting wagons  to  fill  and  light  his  pipe. 

"Wouldn't  that  jar  you   up   right   good   and 

91 


The  Real  Man 

hard  Fr  a  way  to  run  a  railroad,''  he  said  to  Smith, 
indicating  the  wholly  deserted  standing  section  of 
the  freight  with  the  burnt  match-end.  "Them 
fellies  Ve  all  gone  off  up  ahead,  a-leavin'  this  yere 
hind  end  without  a  sign  of  a  man  'r  a  flag  to  take 
keer  of  it.  S'pose  another  train  'd  come  boolgin' 
'round  that  curve.  Wouldn't  it  rise  merry  hell 
with  things  'long  about  this-away?" 

Smith  was  listening  only  with  the  outward  ear 
to  what  the  pipelighter  was  saying.  Somewhere 
in  the  westward  distances  a  thunderous  murmur 
was  droning  upon  the  windless  air  of  the  June 
morning,  betokening,  as  it  seemed,  the  very 
catastrophe  the  ex-grade-laborer  was  prefiguring. 
Smith  stripped  his  coat  for  a  flag  and  started  to 
run  toward  the  crossing,  but  before  he  had  caught 
his  stride  a  dust  cloud  swept  up  over  the  shoulder 
of  the  wagon-road  hill  and  the  portentous  thun- 
derings  were  accounted  for.  A  big  gray  auto- 
mobile, with  the  cut-out  open,  was  topping  the 
side-hill  grade,  and  Smith  recognized  it  at  once. 
It  was  Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin's  roadster,  and 
it  held  a  single  occupant — namely,  the  young 
woman  who  was  driving  it. 

Smith  stopped  running  and  transferred  his 
anxiety  from  the  train  and  railroad  affairs  to  the 
young  woman.     Being  himself  a  skilful  driver  of 

92 


The  Twig 

cars — and  a  man — he  had  a  purely  masculine 
distrust  of  the  woman,  any  woman,  behind  a 
steering-wheel.  To  be  sure,  there  was  no  danger, 
as  yet.  Turning  to  look  up  the  track,  he  saw 
that  the  three  loaded  cars  had  been  set  out,  that 
the  forward  section  of  the  train  had  been  pulled 
up  over  the  switch,  and  that  it  was  now  backing 
to  make  the  coupling  with  the  standing  half. 
He  hoped  that  the  trainmen  had  seen  the  auto- 
mobile, and  that  they  would  not  attempt  to 
make  the  coupling  until  after  the  gray  car  had 
crossed  behind  the  caboose.  But  in  the  same 
breath  he  guessed,  and  guessed  rightly,  that  they 
were  too  far  around  the  curve  to  be  able  to  see 
the  wagon-road  approach. 

Still  there  was  time  enough,  and  room  enough. 
The  caboose  on  the  rear  end  of  the  standing  sec- 
tion was  fully  a  hundred  feet  clear  of  the  road 
crossing;  and  if  the  entire  train  should  start 
backward  at  the  coupling  collision,  the  speed  at 
which  the  oncoming  roadster  was  running  should 
take  it  across  and  out  of  danger.  Nevertheless, 
there  was  no  margin  for  the  unexpected.  Smith 
saw  the  young  woman  check  the  speed  for  the 
abrupt  turn  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  saw  the  car 
take  the  turn  in  a  skidding  slide,  heard  the  re- 
newed   roar   of  the    motor    as    the   throttle   was 

93 


The  Real  Man 

opened  for  a  run  at  the  embankment  grade.  Then 
the  unexpected  dropped  its  bomb.  There  was  a 
jangling  crash  and  the  cars  on  the  main  track 
were  set  in  motion  toward  the  crossing.  The 
trainmen  had  tried  to  make  their  coupling,  the 
drawheads  had  failed  to  engage,  and  the  rear  half 
of  the  train  was  surging  down  upon  the  point 
of  hazard. 

Smith's  shout,  or  the  sight  of  the  oncoming 
train,  one  of  the  two,  or  both,  put  the  finishing 
touch  on  the  young  woman's  nerve.  There  was 
still  time  in  which  to  clear  the  train,  but  at  the 
critical  instant  the  young  woman  apparently 
changed  her  mind  and  tried  to  stop  the  big 
car  short  of  the  crossing.  The  effort  was  un- 
successful. When  the  stop  was  made,  the  front 
wheels  of  the  roadster  were  precisely  in  the 
middle  of  the  main  track,  and  the  motor  was 
killed. 

By  this  time  Smith  had  thrown  his  coat  away 
and  was  racing  the  backing  train,  with  the  ex- 
grade-laborer  a  poor  second  a  dozen  yards  to  the 
rear.  Having  ridden  in  the  roadster,  Smith  knew 
that  it  had  no  self-starter.  "Jump!"  he  yelled. 
"Get  out  of  the  car!"  and  then  his  heart  came 
into  his  mouth  when  he  saw  that  she  was  strug- 
gling to  free  herself  and  couldn't;    that  she  was 

94 


The  Twig 

entangled    in    some    way    behind    the    low-hung 
tiller-wheel. 

Smith  was  running  fairly  abreast  of  the  caboose 
when  he  made  this  discovery,  and  the  hundred 
feet  of  clearance  had  shrunk  to  fifty.  In  imagina- 
tion he  could  already  see  the  gray  car  overturned 
and  crushed  under  the  wheels  of  the  train.  In  a 
flying  spurt  he  gained  a  few  yards  on  the  ad- 
vancing menace  and  hurled  himself  against  the 
front  of  the  stopped  roadster.  He  did  not  attempt 
to  crank  the  motor.  There  was  time  only  for  a 
mighty  heave  and  shove  to  send  the  car  backing 
down  the  slope  of  the  crossing  approach;  for 
this  and  for  the  quick  spring  aside  to  save  him- 
self; and  the  thing  was  done. 


95 


VII 
A  Notice  to  Quit 

ONCE  started  and  given  its  push,  the  gray- 
roadster  drifted  backward  from  the  rail- 
road crossing  and  kept  on  until  it  came  to  rest 
in  the  sag  at  the  turn  in  the  road.  Running  to 
overtake  it,  Smith  found  that  the  young  woman 
was  still  trying,  ineffectually,  to  free  herself.  In 
releasing  the  clutch  her  dress  had  been  caught 
and  Smith  was  glad  enough  to  let  the  extricating 
of  the  caught  skirt  and  the  cranking  of  the  engine 
serve  for  a  breath-catching  recovery. 

When  he  stepped  back  to  "tune"  the  spark 
the  young  woman  had  subsided  into  the  mech- 
anician's seat  and  was  retying  her  veil  with  fin- 
gers that  were  not  any  too  steady.  She  was  small 
but  well-knit;  her  hair  was  a  golden  brown  and 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  it;  her  eyes  were  set  well 
apart,  and  in  the  bright  morning  sunlight  they 
were  a  slaty  gray — of  the  exact  shade  of  the  motor 
veil  she  was  rearranging.  Smith  had  a  sudden 
conviction   that  he   had   seen  the  wide-set   eyes 

96 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

before;  also  the  straight  little  nose  and  the  half 
boyish  mouth  and  chin,  though  where  he  had 
seen  them  the  conviction  could  give  no  present 
hint. 

"I  sup-pup-pose  I  ought  to  say  something  ap- 
propriate," she  was  beginning,  half  breathlessly, 
while  Smith  stood  at  the  fender  and  grinned  in 
character — not  with  the  ex-leader  of  the  Law- 
renceville  younger  set,  but  with  the  newer  and 
more  elemental  man  of  all  work  on  a  desert  dam- 
building  job.  "Wha-what  is  the  proper  thing 
to  say  when  you  have  just  been  sus-snatched  out 
of  the  way  of  a  railroad  train  ?" 

As  J.  Montague,  the  rescuer  would  have  had 
a  neatly  turned  rejoinder  at  his  tongue's  end;  but 
the  well-mannered  phrases  were  altogether  too 
conventional  to  suggest  themselves  to  a  strap- 
ping young  barbarian  in  ill-fitting  khaki  and 
leggings  and  a  slouch  felt.  Being  unable  to  recall 
them,  he  laughed  and  pushed  the  J.  Montague 
past  still  farther  into  the  background. 

"You  don't  have  to  say  anything.  It's  been  a 
long  time  since  I've  had  a  chance  to  make  such  a 
bully  grand-stand  play  as  this."  And  then: 
"You're  Colonel  Baldwin's  daughter,  aren't  you  ?" 

She  nodded,  saying: 

"How  did  you  know?" 

97 


The  Real  Man 

"I  know  the  car.  And  you  have  your  father's 
eyes." 

She  did  not  seem  to  take  it  amiss  that  he  was 
making  her  eyes  a  basis  for  comparisons.  One 
William  Starbuck,  a  former  cattleman  and  her 
father's  time-tried  friend,  paid  Miss  Corona  the 
compliment  of  saying  that  she  never  allowed  her- 
self to  get  "bogged  down  in  the  haughtinesses." 
She  was  her  father's  only  son,  as  well  as  his  only 
daughter,  and  she  divided  her  time  pretty  evenly 
in  trying  to  live  up  to  both  sets  of  require- 
ments. 

"You  have  introduced  me;  wo-won't  you  in- 
troduce yourself?"  she  said,  when  a  second  crash 
of  the  shifting  freight-train  spent  itself  and  gave 
her  an  opening. 

"I'm  Smith,"  he  told  her;  adding:  "It's  my 
real  name." 

Her  laugh  was  an  instant  easing  of  tensions. 

"Oh,  yes;  you're  Mr.  Williams's  assistant. 
I've  heard  Colonel-da — my  father,  speak  of  you." 

"No,"  he  denied  in  blunt  honesty,  "I'm  not 
Williams's  assistant;  at  least,  the  pay-roll  doesn't 
say  so.  Up  at  the  camp  they  call  me  'The  Hobo,' 
and  that's  what  I  was  a  week  or  so  ago  when  your 
father  picked  me  up  and  gave  me  a  lift  to  the  dam 
in  this  car." 

98 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

The  young  woman  had  apparently  regained 
whatever  small  fraction  of  self-possession  the 
narrow  escape  had  shocked  aside. 

"Are  they  never  going  to  take  that  miserable 

train  out  of  the  way  ?"  she  exclaimed.     "I've  got 

to  see  Mr.  Williams,  and  there  isn't  a  minute  to 

spare.     That  is  why  I  was  breaking  all  the  speed 

mits. 

"They  are  about  ready  to  pull  out  now,"  he 
returned,  with  a  glance  over  his  shoulder  at  the 
train.  "I'm  a  sort  of  general  utility  man  up  at 
the  camp:   can  you  use  me  in  any  way  ?" 

"I'm  afraid  you  won't  do,"  she  replied,  with  a 
little  laughing  grimace  that  made  him  wonder 
where  and  when  in  the  past  he  had  seen  some 
young  woman  do  the  same  thing  under  exactly 
similar  conditions.  "It's  a  matter  of  business — 
awfully  urgent  business.  Colonel-da — I  mean  my 
father,  has  gone  up  to  Red  Butte,  and  a  little  while 
ago  they  telephoned  over  to  the  ranch  from  the 
Brewster  office  to  say  that  there  was  going  to  be 
some  more  trouble  at  the  dam." 

"They?"  he  queried. 

"Mr.  Martin,  the  head  bookkeeper.  He  said 
he'd  been  trying  to  get  Mr.  Williams,  but  the 
wires  to  the  camp  were  out  of  order." 

"They're  not,"  said  Smith  shortly,  remembering 

99 


The  Real  Man 

that  Perkins  had  been  talking  from  the  camp  to 
the  Brewster  railroad  agent  within  the  half-hour. 
"But  never  mind  that:   go  on." 

Again  she  let  him  see  the  piquant  little  grimace. 

"You  say  that  just  as  if  you  were  Mr.  Williams's 
assistant,"  she  threw  back  at  him.  "  But  I  haven't 
time  to  quarrel  with  you  this  morning,  Mr.  Real- 
name  Smith.  If  you'll  take  your  foot  off  the 
fender  I'll  go  on  up  to  the  dam  and  find  Mr. 
Williams." 

"You  couldn't  quarrel  with  me  if  you  should 
try,"  was  the  good-natured  rejoinder,  and  Smith 
tried  in  vain  to  imagine  himself  taking  his  present 
attitude  with  any  of  the  young  women  he  had 
known  in  his  cotillon  days — with  Verda  Rich- 
lander,  for  example.  Then  he  added:  "You  won't 
find  Williams  at  the  camp.  He  started  out  early 
this  morning  to  ride  the  lower  ditch  lines  beyond 
Little  Creek,  and  he  said  he  wouldn't  be  back 
until  some  time  to-morrow.  Now  will  you  tell  me 
what  you're  needing — and  give  me  a  possible 
chance  to  get  my  pay  raised  ?" 

"Oh! "  she  exclaimed,  with  a  little  gasp  of  disap- 
pointment, presumably  for  the  Williams  absence. 
"I've  simply  got  to  find  Mr.  Williams — or  some- 
body !  Do  you  happen  to  know  anything  about 
the  lawsuit  troubles  ?" 

ioo 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

"I  know  all  about  them;  Williams  has  told 
me. 

"Then  I'll  tell  you  what  Mr.  Martin  telephoned. 
He  said  that  three  men  were  going  to  pretend  to 
relocate  a  mining  claim  in  the  hills  back  of  the 
dam,  somewhere  near  the  upper  end  of  the  reser- 
voir lake-that-is-to-be.  They're  doing  it  so  that 
they  can  get  out  an  injunction,  or  whatever  you 
call  it,  and  then  we'll  have  to  buy  them  off,  as 
the  others  have  been  bought  off." 

Smith  was  by  this  time  entirely  familiar  with 
the  maps  and  profiles  and  other  records  of  the 
ditch  company's  lands  and  holdings. 

"All  the  land  within  the  limits  of  the  flood 
level  has  been  bought  and  paid  for — some  of  it 
more  than  once,  hasn't  it?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  yes;  but  that  doesn't  make  any  difference. 
These  men  will  claim  that  their  location  was  made 
long  ago,  and  that  they  are  just  now  getting  ready 
to  work  it.  It's  often  done  in  the  case  of  mining 
claims." 

"When  is  all  this  going  to  happen?"  he  in- 
quired. 

"It  is  already  happening,"  she  broke  out  im- 
patiently. "Mr.  Martin  said  the  three  men  left 
town  a  little  after  daybreak  and  crossed  on  the 
Brewster  bridge  to  go  up  on  the  other  side  of  the 

IOI 


The  Real  Man 

Timanyoni.  They  had  a  two-horse  team  and  a 
camping  outfit.  They  are  probably  at  work  long 
before  this  time." 

The  young  woman  had  taken  her  place  again 
behind  the  big  tiller-wheel,  and  Smith  calmly 
motioned  her  out  of  it. 

"Take  the  other  seat  and  let  me  get  in  here,,, 
he  said;  and  when  she  had  changed  over,  he 
swung  in  behind  the  wheel  and  put  a  foot  on  the 
clutch  pedal. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  she  asked. 

"I'm  going  to  take  you  on  up  to  the  camp,  and 
then,  if  you'll  lend  me  this  car,  I'll  go  and  do  what 
you  hoped  to  persuade  Williams  to  do — run  these 
mining-claim  jokers  into  the  tall  timber." 

"But  you  can't!"  she  protested;  "you  can't 
do  it  alone !  And,  besides,  they  are  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river,  and  you  can't  get  anywhere  with 
the  car.  You'll  have  to  go  all  the  way  back  to 
Brewster  to  get  across  the  river!" 

It  was  just  here  that  he  stole  another  glance 
at  the  very-much-alive  little  face  behind  the 
motor  veil;  at  the  firm,  round  chin  and  the 
resolute,  slaty-gray  eyes. 

"I  suppose  I  ought  to  take  you  to  the  camp," 
he  said.  "But  you  may  go  along  with  me,  if  you 
want  to — and  are  not  afraid." 

1 02 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

She  laughed  in  his  face. 

"I  was  born  here  in  the  Timanyoni,  and  you 
haven't  been  here  three  weeks:  do  you  think  I'd 
be  afraid  to  go  anywhere  that  you'll  go  ?" 

"We'll  see  about  that,"  he  chuckled,  match- 
ing the  laugh;  and  with  that  he  let  the  clutch 
take  hold  and  sent  the  car  rolling  gently  up  to 
the  level  of  the  railroad  embankment  and  across 
the  rails  of  the  main  track. 

On  the  right  of  way  of  the  paralleling  side- 
track he  steered  off  the  crossing  and  pulled  the 
roadster  around  until  it  was  headed  fairly  for  the 
upper  switch.  Then  he  climbed  down  and  re- 
covered his  coat  which  had  been  flung  aside  in 
the  race  with  the  train.  Resuming  his  place  be- 
hind the  tiller-wheel,  he  put  the  motor  in  the 
reverse  and  began  to  back  the  car  on  the  siding, 
steering  so  that  the  wheels  on  one  side  hugged 
the  inside  of  one  rail. 

"What  in  the  world  are  you  trying  to  do?" 
questioned  the  young  woman  who  had  said  she 
was  not  afraid. 

"Wait,"  he  temporized;  "just  wait  a  minute 
and  get  ready  to  hang  on  like  grim  death.  We're 
going  across  on  that  trestle." 

He  fully  expected  her  to  shriek  and  grab  for 
the   steering-wheel.     That,   he  told  himself,  was 

103 


The  Real  Man 

what  the  normal  young  woman  would  do.  But 
Miss  Corona  disappointed  him. 

"You'll  put  us  both  into  the  river,  and  smash 
Colonel-daddy's  car,  but  I  guess  the  Baldwin 
family  can  stand  it  if  you  can,"  she  remarked 
quite  calmly. 

Smith  kept  on  backing  until  the  car  had  passed 
the  switch  from  which  the  spur  branched  off  to 
cross  to  the  material  yard  on  the  opposite  side 
of  the  river.  A  skilful  bit  of  juggling  put  the 
roadster  over  on  the  ties  of  the  spur-track.  Then 
he  turned  to  his  fellow  risk. 

"Sit  low,  and  hang  on  with  both  hands,"  he  di- 
rected.    "Now!"  and  he  opened  the  throttle. 

The  trestle  was  not  much  above  two  hundred 
feet  long,  and,  happily,  the  cross-ties  were  closely 
spaced.  Steered  to  a  hair,  the  big  car  went 
bumping  across,  and  in  his  innermost  recesses 
Smith  was  saying  to  his  immediate  ancestor,  the 
well-behaved  bank  clerk:  "You  swab!  you  never 
saw  the  day  when  you  could  do  a  thing  like  this 
.  .  .  you  thought  you  had  me  tied  up  in  a  bunch 
of  ribbon,  didn't  you  ?" 

If  Miss  Baldwin  were  frightened,  she  did  not 
show  it;  and  when  the  crossing  was  safely  made, 
Smith  caught  a  little  side  glance  that  told  him 
he  was   making  good.     He  jerked   the   roadster 

104 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

out  of  the  entanglement  of  the  railroad  track 
and  said:  "You  may  sit  up  now  and  tell  me  which 
way  to  go.  I  don't  know  anything  about  the 
roads  over  here." 

She  pointed  out  the  way  across  the  hills,  and 
a  four-mile  dash  followed  that  set  the  blood 
dancing  in  Smith's  veins.  He  had  never  before 
driven  a  car  as  fast  as  he  wanted  to;  partly  be- 
cause he  had  never  owned  one  powerful  enough, 
and  partly  because  the  home-land  speed  laws — 
and  his  own  past  metier — would  not  sanction  it. 
Up  hill  and  down  the  big  roadster  raced,  de- 
vouring the  interspaces,  and  at  the  topping  of  the 
last  of  the  ridges  the  young  woman  opened  the 
small  tool-box  in  the  dividing  arm  between  the  seats 
and  showed  her  reckless  driver  a  large  and  ser- 
viceable army  automatic  snugly  holstered  under 
the  lid. 

"Daddy  always  keeps  it  there  for  his  night 
drives  on  the  horse  ranges,"  she  explained.  But 
Smith  was  shaking  his  head. 

"We're  not  going  to  need  anything  of  that 
sort,"  he  assured  her,  and  the  racing  search  for 
three  men  and  a  two-horse  team  was  continued. 

Beyond  the  final  hill,  in  a  small,  low-lying 
swale  which  was  well  hidden  from  any  point  of 
view  in   the   vicinity   of  the   distant   dam,   they 

io5 


The  Real  Man 

came  upon  the  interlopers.  There  were  three 
men  and  two  horses  and  a  covered  wagon,  as 
Martin's  telephone  message  had  catalogued  them. 
The  horses  were  still  in  the  traces,  and  just  be- 
yond the  wagon  a  long,  narrow  parallelogram,  of 
the  length  and  breadth  of  a  legal  mining  claim, 
had  been  marked  out  by  freshly  driven  stakes. 
In  one  end  of  the  parallelogram  two  of  the  men 
were  digging  perfunctorily,  while  the  third  was 
tacking  the  legal  notice  on  a  bit  of  board  nailed 
to  one  of  the  stakes. 

Smith  sent  the  gray  car  rocketing  down  into 
the  swale,  brought  it  to  a  stand  with  a  thrust 
of  the  brakes,  and  jumped  out.  Once  more  the 
primitive  Stone  Age  man  in  him,  which  had  slept 
so  long  and  so  quietly  under  the  Lawrenceville 
conventionalities,  was  joyously  pitching  the  bar- 
riers aside. 

"It's  moving  day  for  you  fellows,"  he  an- 
nounced cheerfully,  picking  the  biggest  of  the 
three  as  the  proper  subject  for  the  order  giving. 
"You're  on  the  Timanyoni  Ditch  Company's 
land,  and  you  know  it.  Pile  into  that  wagon  and 
fade  away !" 

The  big  man's  answer  was  a  laugh,  pointed, 
doubtless,  by  the  fact  that  the  order  giver  was 
palpably  unarmed.     But  on  second  thought  he 

1 06 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

began  to  supplement  the  laugh  with  an  oath. 
Smith's  right  arm  shot  out,  and  when  the  blow 
landed  there  were  only  two  left  to  close  in  on 
him.  In  such  sudden  hostilities  the  advantages 
are  all  with  the  beginner.  Having  superior  reach 
and  a  good  bit  more  skill  than  either  of  the  two 
tacklers,  Smith  held  his  own  until  he  could  get 
in  a  few  more  of  the  smashing  right-handers,  but 
in  planting  them  he  took  punishment  enough  to 
make  him  Berserk-mad  and  so  practically  in- 
vincible. There  was  a  fierce  mingling  of  arms, 
legs,  and  bodies,  sufficiently  terrifying,  one  would 
suppose,  to  a  young  woman  sitting  calmly  in  an 
automobile  a  hundred  yards  away;  but  she 
neither  cried  out  nor  attempted  to  go  to  the 
rescue  with  the  weapon  which  it  seemed  as  if 
Smith  might  be  needing. 

The  struggle  was  short  in  just  proportion  to 
its  vigor,  and  at  the  end  of  it  two  of  the  tres- 
passers were  knocked  out,  and  Smith  was  drag- 
ging the  third  over  to  the  wagon,  into  which  he 
presently  heaved  the  man  as  if  he  had  been  a 
sack  of  meal.  Miss  Baldwin,  sitting  in  the  car, 
saw  her  ally  dive  into  the  covered  wagon  and 
come  out  with  a  pair  of  Winchesters.  Pausing 
only  long  enough  to  smash  the  guns,  one  after 
the  other,  over  the  wagon-wheel,  he  started  back 

107 


The  Real  Man 

after  the  two  other  men.  They  were  not  waiting 
to  be  carried  to  the  wagon;  they  were  up  and 
running  in  a  wide  semicircle  to  reach  their  hope 
of  retreat  unslain,  if  that  might  be.  It  was  all 
very  brutal  and  barbarous,  no  doubt,  but  the 
colonel's  daughter  was  Western  born  and  bred, 
and  she  clapped  her  hands  and  laughed  in  sheer 
enthusiasm  when  she  saw  Smith  make  a  show 
of  chasing  the  circling  runners. 

He  did  not  return  to  her  until  after  he  had 
pulled  up  the  freshly  driven  stakes  and  thrown 
them  away,  and  by  that  time  the  wagon,  with 
the  horses  lashed  to  a  keen  gallop,  was  disap- 
pearing over  the  crest  of  the  northern  ridge. 

"That's  one  way  to  get  rid  of  them,  isn't  it  ?" 
said  the  emancipated  bank  man,  jocosely,  upon 
taking  his  place  in  the  car  to  cramp  it  for  the 
turn.  "Was  that  something  like  the  notion  you 
had  in  mind  ?" 

"Mercy,  no!"  she  rejoined.  And  then:  "Are 
you  sure  you  are  not  hurt  ?" 

"Not  worth  mentioning,"  he  evaded.  "Those 
duffers  couldn't  hurt  anybody,  so  long  as  they 
couldn't  get  to  their  guns." 

"But  you  have  saved  the  company  at  your  own 
expense.    They  will  be  sure  to  have  you  arrested." 

"We  won't  cross  that  bridge  until  we  come  to 
1 08 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

it,"  he  returned.  "And,  besides,  there  were  no 
witnesses.     You  didn't  see  anything." 

"Of  course,  I  didn't;  not  the  least  little  thing 
in  the  world  !"  she  agreed,  laughing  with  him. 

"I  thought  not.  There  were  too  many  of  us 
for  any  single  eye-witness  to  get  more  than  the 
general  effect."  Then,  in  easy  assertion  of  his 
victor  rights:  "If  we  were  back  in  the  country 
from  which  I  have  lately  escaped  it  would  be 
proper  for  me  to  ask  your  permission  to  drive 
you  safely  home.  Since  we  are  not,  I  shall  as- 
sume the  permission  and  do  it  anyway." 

"Oh,  is  that  necessary?"  she  asked,  meaning, 
as  he  took  it,  nothing  more  than  comradely  dep- 
recation at  putting  him  to  the  trouble  of  it. 

"Not  absolutely  necessary,  perhaps,  but  de- 
cently prudent.  You  might  drop  me  opposite  the 
dam,  but  you'd  have  to  pass  those  fellows  some- 
where on  the  way  and  they  might  try  to  make 
it  unpleasant  for  you." 

She  made  no  further  comment,  and  he  sent 
the  car  spinning  along  over  the  hills  to  the  west- 
ward. A  mile  short  of  the  trestle  river  crossing 
they  overtook  and  passed  the  wagon.  Because 
he  had  the  colonel's  daughter  with  him,  Smith 
put  on  a  burst  of  speed  and  so  gave  the  claim- 
jumpers   no   chance   to   provoke   another   battle. 

109 


The  Real  Man 

With  the  possible  unpleasantnesses  thus  left  in 
the  rear,  Smith  knew  well  enough  that  there  was 
really  no  reason  for  his  going  any  farther  than 
the  spur-track  trestle.  None  the  less,  he  held  to 
his  announced  determination,  driving  briskly 
down  the  north-side  river  road  and  on  toward 
the  grass-land  ranches. 

In  the  maze  of  cross-roads  opposite  the  little 
city  on  the  south  bank  of  the  river,  Smith  was 
out  of  his  reckoning,  and  was  obliged  to  ask  his 
companion  to  direct  him. 

"I  thought  you  weren't  ever  going  to  say  any- 
thing any  more,"  she  sighed,  in  mock  despair. 
"Take  this  road  to  the  right." 

"I  can't  talk  and  drive  a  speed-wagon  at  the 
same  time,"  he  told  her,  twisting  the  gray  car 
into  the  road  she  had  indicated,  and  he  made 
the  assertion  good  by  covering  the  four  remain- 
ing miles  in  the  same  preoccupied  fashion. 

There  was  a  reason,  of  a  sort,  for  his  silence; 
two  of  them,  to  be  exact.  For  one,  he  was  troubled 
by  that  haunting  sense  of  familiarity  which  was 
still  trying  to  tell  him  that  this  was  not  his  first 
meeting  with  Colonel  Baldwin's  daughter;  and 
the  other  was  much  bigger,  and  more  depressing. 
Though  he  was  continually  assuring  himself  that 
he  had  buried  the  former  bank  clerk  and  all  of 

no 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

his  belongings  in  a  deep  grave,  some  of  the  bank- 
clerk  convictions  still  refused  to  remain  decently 
in  the  coffin.  One  of  these — and  it  had  been 
daggering  him  sharply  for  the  past  half-hour — 
was  the  realization  that  in  breaking  with  his  past, 
he  had  broken  also  with  the  world  of  women — 
good  women — at  least  to  the  extent  of  ever  ask- 
ing one  of  them  to  marry  him. 

Truly,  though  shadows  are  insubstantial  things 
for  the  greater  part,  there  is  one  exception.  The 
shadow  of  a  crime  may  involve  both  the  innocent 
and  the  guilty  quite  as  effectually  as  the  thing 
itself,  and  Smith  saw  himself  shut  out  auto- 
matically from  the  married  beatitudes.  ...  He 
pushed  the  thought  aside,  coming  back  to  the 
other  one — the  puzzle  of  familiarity — when  Miss 
Baldwin  pointed  to  a  transplanted  Missouri 
farm  mansion,  with  a  columned  portico,  standing 
in  a  grove  of  cottonwoods  on  the  left-hand  side 
of  the  road,  telling  him  it  was  Hillcrest. 

There  was  a  massive  stone  portal  fronting  the 
road,  and  when  he  got  down  to  open  the  gates 
the  young  woman  took  the  wheel  and  drove 
through;  whereupon,  he  decided  that  it  was  time 
for  him  to  break  away,  and  said  so. 

"But  how  will  you  get  back  to  the  camp?" 
she  asked. 

in 


The  Real  Man 

"I  have  my  two  legs  yet,  and  the  walking  isn't 
bad." 

"No;    but  you  might  meet  those  men  again." 

"That  is  the  least  of  my  troubles." 

Miss  Corona  Baldwin,  like  the  Missouri  colonel, 
her  father,  came  upon  moments  now  and  then 
when  she  had  the  ultimate  courage  of  her  impulses. 

"I  should  have  said  you  hadn't  a  trouble  in 
the  world,"  she  asserted,  meeting  his  gaze  level- 
eyed. 

The  polite  paraphrases  of  the  coffined  period 
were  slipping  to  the  end  of  his  tongue,  but  he  set 
his  teeth  upon  them  and  said,  instead:  "That's 
all  you  know  about  it.  What  if  I  should  tell  you 
that  you've  been  driving  this  morning  with  an 
escaped  convict?" 

"I  shouldn't  believe  it,"  she  said  calmly. 

"Well,  you  haven't — not  quite,"  he  returned, 
adding  the  qualifying  phrase  in  sheer  honesty. 

She  had  untied  her  veil  and  was  asking  him 
hospitably  if  he  wouldn't  come  in  and  meet  her 
mother.  Something  in  the  way  she  said  it,  some 
little  twist  of  the  lips  or  look  of  the  eyes,  touched 
the  spring  of  complete  recognition  and  the  fa- 
miliarity puzzle  vanished  instantly. 

"You  forget  that  I  am  a  workingman,"  he 
smiled.     "My  gang  in  the  quarry  will  think  I've 

112 


A  Notice  to  Quit 

found  a  bottle  somewhere."  And  then:  "Did 
you  ever  lose  a  glove,  Miss  Baldwin — a  white 
kid  with  a  little  hole  in  one  finger  ?" 

"Dozens  of  them,"  she  admitted;  "and  most 
of  them  had  holes,  I'm  afraid.  But  what  has  that 
got  to  do  with  your  coming  in  and  meeting  mamma 
and  letting  her  thank  you  for  saving  my  life?" 

"Nothing  at  all,  of  course,"  he  hastened  to  say; 
and  with  that  he  bade  her  good-by  rather  ab- 
ruptly and  turned  his  back  upon  the  transplanted 
Missouri  mansion,  muttering  to  himself  as  he 
closed  the  portal  gates  behind  him:  *  Bald- 
win,' of  course !  What  an  ass  I  was  not  to  re- 
member the  name !  And  now  I've  got  the  other 
half  of  it,  too;   it's  *  Corona.'  " 


ii3 


VIII 
Timanyoni  Ditch 

SMITH  had  his  vote  of  thanks  from  Colonel 
Dexter  Baldwin  in  person  late  in  the  after- 
noon of  the  day  following  the  summary  eviction 
of  the  sham  mine  locators  in  the  upper  reservoir; 
presidential  thanks  for  his  prompt  defense  of  the 
company's  interests,  and  a  warm  outhanding  of 
fatherly  gratitude  for  the  rescue  at  the  unload- 
ing side-track.  The  vote  was  passed  in  Williams's 
sheet-iron  office  at  the  dam,  the  colonel  having 
driven  out  to  the  camp  for  the  express  purpose; 
and  the  chief  of  construction  himself  was  not 
present. 

"You've  loaded  us  up  with  a  tolerably  heavy 
obligation,  Smith — Corry's  mother  and  me,"  was 
the  way  the  colonel  summed  up  in  the  personal 
field.  "If  you  hadn't  been  on  deck  and  strictly 
on  the  job  at  that  railroad  crossing  yesterday 
morning " 

"Don't  mention  it,  Colonel,"  Smith  broke  in, 
protesting    honestly    as    plain    "John"    where    a 

114 


Timanyoni  Ditch 

"J.  Montague"  might  have  made  self-gratula- 
tory  capital.  "There  is  only  one  thing  in  this 
world  more  onerous  than  owing  an  obligation, 
and  that  is  the  feeling  that  you've  got  to  live  up 
to  one.  I  did  nothing  more  than  any  man  would 
have  done  for  any  woman.  You  know  it,  and 
I  know  it.  Let's  leave  it  that  way  and  forget 
it." 

The  tall  Missourian's  laugh  was  entirely  ap- 
probative. 

"I  like  that,"  he  said.  "It's  a  good,  man- 
fashion  way  of  looking  at  it.  Corry  wanted  me 
to  tell  her  what  I  was  going  to  say  to  you,  and  I 
said  I'd  be  hanged  if  I  knew.  I  owe  you  one  for 
making  it  easy.  You  know  how  I  feel  about  it — 
how  any  father  would  feel;    and  that's  enough." 

"Plenty,"  was  the  brief  rejoinder. 

"But  there's  another  chapter  to  it  that  neither 
of  us  can  cross  out;  you'll  have  to  come  out  to 
the  ranch  and  let  Corry's  mother  have  a  hack  at 
you,"  Baldwin  went  on.  "I  couldn't  figure  you 
out  of  that  if  I  should  try.  And  now  about  those 
claim-jumpers:  I  suppose  you  didn't  know  any 
of  them  by  name  ?" 

"No." 

"Corry  says  you  gave  them  the  time  of  their 
lives.    By  George,  I  wish  I'd  been  there  to  see !" 

115 


The  Real  Man 

and  the  colonel  slapped  his  leg  and  laughed. 
"Did  they  look  like  the  real  thing — sure-enough 
prospectors  ?" 

"They  looked  like  a  bunch  of  hired  assassins," 
said  Smith,  with  a  grin.  "It's  some  more  of  the 
interference,  isn't  it  ?" 

The  colonel's  square  jaw  settled  into  the  fight- 
ing angle. 

"How  much  do  you  know  about  this  business 
mix-up  of  ours,  Smith  ?"  he  asked. 

"All  that  Williams  could  tell  me  in  a  little 
heart-to-heart  talk  we  had  the  other  day." 

"You  agreed  with  him  that  there  was  a  toler- 
ably big  nigger  in  the  wood-pile,  didn't  you  ?" 

"I  had  already  gathered  that  much  from  the 
camp  gossip." 

"Well,  it's  so.  We're  just  about  as  helpless 
as  a  bunch  of  cattle  in  a  sink-hole,"  was  the 
ranchman  president's  confirmation  of  the  camp 
guesses.  "As  long  as  it  was  a  straightaway 
stunt  of  buying  land  and  building  a  dam  and  dig- 
ging a  few  ditches,  we  were  in  the  fight.  We 
knew  what  we  wanted,  and  we  had  the  money  to 
go  out  and  buy  it.  But  now  it  looks  as  if  we  were 
aiming  to  get  it  where  the  chicken  got  the  cleaver. 
If  our  hunch  about  the  Escalante  irrigation  trust 
is  right,  we  are  not  only  going  to  lose  our  money 

116 


Timanyoni  Ditch 

and  our  work;  we've  run  slap  up  against  a  prop- 
osition that  will  shut  us  out  of  the  water  alto- 
gether and  force  us  to  buy  it  of  these  Eastern 
sharks — at  their  own  price.  When  it  comes  to 
that,  we  may  as  well  make  'em  a  present  of  the 
entire  Little  Creek  district.  They  can  take  it 
whenever  they  have  a  mind  to." 

Smith  was  thinking  of  the  young  woman  with 
the  resolute  slaty-gray  eyes  when  he  said:  "That 
is,  of  course,  if  you  lie  down  and  let  them  put  the 
steam-roller  over  you.  But  you're  not  going  to 
do  that,  are  you  ?" 

Baldwin  shook  his  head  as  one  who  will  not 
permit  himself  to  minimize  a  hazard. 

"Keep  that  notion  of  the  cattle  in  a  sink-hole 
in  front  of  you,  Smith,  and  you'll  get  a  pretty 
fair  idea  of  the  chances.  What  in  the  name  of 
the  great  horn  spoon  can  we  do — more  than  we 
have  done  ?" 

"There  are  a  number  of  things  that  might  be 
done,"  said  Smith,  falling  back  reflectively  upon 
the  presumably  dead  and  buried  bank-cashier 
part  of  him.  "In  the  first  place,  these  trust 
people  can't  take  your  dam  and  your  ditch  right 
of  way  until  after  they  have  bought  up  a  voting 
control  of  your  stock.  It  is  very  pointedly  up 
to  you  and  your  fellow  stockholders  to  say  whether 

117 


The  Real  Man 

or  not  you  are  going  to  let  them  scare  or  force 
you  into  selling,  isn't  it  ?" 

"I  reckon  maybe  it  is.  But  two  of  our  men 
have  already  sold  out,  and  more  will  follow. 
These  Eastern  sharks  Ve  got  the  bulge  on  us; 
they  have  the  money,  and  we're  just  about  as 
good  as  dead  broke." 

"Of  course,"  said  the  younger  man.  "That 
was  part  of  the  game;  to  swamp  you  with  costly 
lawsuits,  use  up  your  capital,  and  break  your 
credit.  It's  done  every  day  in  business,  and  in  a 
thousand  different  ways,  some  of  them  pure  rob- 
beries, but  most  of  them  legally  defensible.  You 
folks  have  made  the  mistake  of  letting  it  go  too 
far  on  too  small  a  capitalization.  You're  left 
without  a  fighting  fund.  Still,  while  there  is 
life  there  is  always  hope.  And  if  you  can  manage 
to  stay  in  the  game  and  play  it  out,  there  is  big 
money  in  it  for  all  of  you;  enough  to  make  it 
well  worth  while  for  you  to  put  up  the  fight  of 
your  lives." 

"  Big  money  ? — you  mean  in  saving  our  in- 
vestment ?" 

"Oh,  no;  not  at  all;  in  cinching  the  other  fel- 
lows," Smith  put  in  genially.  "As  Williams  ex- 
plained it  to  me,  there  is  the  biggest  kind  of  a 
killing  in  it  for  you  people,  if  you  can  hold  on  and 
win  out." 

118 


Timanyoni  Ditch 

Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin  lifted  his  soft  hat  and 
ran  his  fingers  through  his  grizzled  hair. 

"Say,  Smith;  you  mustn't  forget  that  I'm 
from  Missouri/'  he  said  half  quizzically. 

"  But  I  shouldn't  think  you'd  need  to  be  '  shown ' 
in  this  particular  instance,"  was  the  smiling  re- 
joinder. "Why  are  these  Eastern  capitalists 
spending  their  good  money  on  a  scheme  to  freeze 
out  your  little  handful  of  ranch  owners,  Colonel  ? 
Surely  you've  asked  yourself  that  question  long 
before  this,  haven't  you  ?" 

"Why,  yes;  it's  because  they  want  to  get  some- 
thing for  nothing,  isn't  it  ?" 

"In  a  general  sense,  of  course,  that  is  the  basis 
of  all  crooked  business  schemes.  But  the  chance 
to  sell  you  people  water  from  your  own  dam  isn't 
the  only  thing  or  the  main  thing  in  this  case; 
that  part  of  it  is  merely  incidental.  Didn't  Wil- 
liams tell  me  that  they  are  obliged  to  have  this 
dam  site,  or,  at  least,  one  as  high  up  the  river  as 
this,  in  order  to  get  the  water  over  to  their 
newly  alienated  grant  in  the  western  half  of  the 
park?" 

"I  don't  know  what  Bartley  told  you,  but  that 
is  the  fact." 

"No  way  of  dodging  that,  is  there?  They 
couldn't  possibly  build  a  dam  of  their  own,  lower 
down,  and  make  it  work,  could  they  ?    I'm  asking 

119 


The  Real  Man 

because  what  I  don't  know  about  irrigation  en- 
gineering would  fill  a  Carnegie  library  in  a  good- 
sized  little  city." 

"You've  got  it  straight,"  said  the  colonel. 
"A  good  part  of  the  Escalante  Grant  lies  higher 
than  our  Little  Creek  ranches.  From  any  point 
farther  down  the  river  than  this,  they'd  have  to 
pump  the  water  to  get  it  up  to  the  Escalante 
mesas." 

"Very  good.  Then  they're  simply  obliged  to 
have  your  dam,  or —  Don't  you  see  the  alterna- 
tive now,  Colonel?" 

"Heavens  to  Betsy!"  exclaimed  the  breeder 
of  fine  horses,  bringing  his  fist  down  upon  Wil- 
liams's desk  with  a  crash  that  made  the  ink- 
bottles  dance.  And  then:  "The  Lord  have 
mercy  !  What  a  lot  of  fence-posts  we  are — the 
whole  kit  and  b'ilin'  of  us !  If  they  get  the  dam, 
they  sell  water  to  us;  if  they  don't  get  it,  we  sell 
it  to  them  I" 

"That's  it,  exactly,"  Smith  put  in  quietly. 
"And  I  should  say  that  your  stake  in  the  game 
is  worth  the  stiffest  fight  you  can  make  to  save 
it.     Don't  you  agree  with  me  ?" 

"Great  Jehu!  I  should  say  so!"  ejaculated 
the  amateur  trust  fighter.  Then  he  broke  down 
the  barriers  masterfully.    "That  settles  it,  Smith. 

1 20 


Timanyoni  Ditch 

You  can't  wiggle  out  of  it  now,  no  way  or  shape. 
You've  got  to  come  over  into  Macedonia  and 
help  us.  Williams  tells  me  you  refused  him,  but 
you  can't  refuse  me." 

If  Smith  hesitated,  it  was  only  partly  on  his 
own  account.  He  was  thinking  again  of  the 
young  woman  with  the  honest  eyes  when  he  said: 
"Do  you  know  why  I  turned  Williams  down 
when  he  spoke  to  me  the  other  day  ?" 

Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin  had  his  faults,  like 
other  men,  but  they  were  not  those  of  indirection. 

"I  reckon  I  do  know,  son,"  he  said,  with  large 
tolerance.  "You're  a  'lame  duck'  of  some  sort; 
you've  made  that  pretty  plain  in  your  talks  with 
Williams,  haven't  you  ?  But  that's  our  lookout. 
Bartley  is  ready  to  swear  that  you  are  not  a  crooked 
crook,  whatever  else  it  is  that  you're  dodging  for, 
and  if  we  want  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  way  you 
won't  loosen  up  about  yourself.  .  .  .  Besides, 
there's  yesterday;  and  what  you  did  down  at 
the  railroad  crossing  and  out  yonder  in  the 
hills " 

"We  agreed  to  forget  the  yesterday  incidents," 
the  lame  duck  reminded  him  quickly.  And  then: 
"I  ought  to  say  'No,'  Colonel  Baldwin;  say  it 
straight  out,  and  stick  to  it.  If  I  don't  say  it 
— if  I  ask  for  a  little  time — it  is  because  I  want 

121 


The  Real  Man 

to  weigh  up  a  few  things — the  things  I  can't  talk 
about  to  you  or  to  Williams.  If,  in  the  end,  I 
should  be  fool  enough  to  say  'Yes/  it  will  be 
merely  because,  the  way  things  have  turned  out 
with  me,  I'd  a  little  rather  fight  than  eat.  But 
even  in  that  case  it  is  only  fair  to  you  to  say  that, 
right  in  the  middle  of  the  scrap,  I  may  fall  to 
pieces  on  you." 

Baldwin  was  too  shrewd  to  try  to  push  his  ad- 
vantage when  there  was,  or  seemed  to  be,  a  chance 
that  the  desired  end  was  as  good  as  half  attained. 
And  it  was  a  purely  manful  prompting  that  made 
him  get  up  and  thrust  out  his  hand  to  the  young 
fellow  who  was  trying  to  be  as  frank  as  he  dared 
to  be. 

"Put  it  there,  John,"  he  said  heartily.  "No- 
body in  the  Timanyoni  is  going  to  pry  into  you 
an  inch  farther  than  you  care  to  let  'em;  and  if 
you  get  into  trouble  by  helping  us,  you  can  count 
on  at  least  one  backer  who  will  stand  by  you  until 
the  cows  come  home.  Now  then,  hunt  up  your 
coat,  and  we'll  drive  over  to  Hillcrest  for  a  bite 
to  eat.  I  know  you  won't  be  easy  in  your  mind 
until  you've  had  it  out  with  Corry's  mother — 
about  that  little  railroad  trick — and  you  may  as 
well  do  it  now  and  have  it  over  with.  No;  ex- 
cuses don't  go,  this  time.     I  had  my  orders  from 

122 


Timanyoni  Ditch 

the  Missus  before  I  left  town,  and  I  know  better 
than  to  go  home  without  you.  Never  mind  the 
commissary  khaki.  It  won't  be  the  first  time 
that  the  working-clothes  have  figured  at  the  Hill- 
crest  table — not  by  a  long  shot." 

And  because  he  did  not  know  how  to  frame 
a  refusal  that  would  refuse,  Smith  got  his  coat 
and  went. 


123 


IX 

Relapsings 

GIVEN  his  choice  between  the  two,  Smith 
would  cheerfully  have  faced  another  hand- 
to-hand  battle  with  the  claim-jumpers  in  prefer- 
ence to  even  so  mild  a  dip  into  the  former  things 
as  the  dinner  at  Hillcrest  foreshadowed.  The 
reluctance  was  not  forced;  it  was  real.  The 
primitive  man  in  him  did  not  wish  to  be  enter- 
tained. On  the  fast  auto  drive  down  to  Brewster, 
across  the  bridge,  and  out  to  the  Baldwin  ranch 
Smith's  humor  was  frankly  sardonic.  Dinners,, 
social  or  grateful,  were  such  childish  things;  so 
little  worth  the  time  and  attention  of  a  real  man 
with  work  to  do  ! 

It  mattered  nothing  that  he  had  lived  twenty- 
five  years  and  more  without  suspecting  this 
childishness  of  things  social.  That  door  was 
closed  and  another  had  been  opened;  beyond 
the  new  opening  the  prospect  was  as  yet  rather 
chaotic  and  rugged,  to  be  sure,  but  the  color 
scheme,  if  somewhat  raw,  was  red-blood  vivid, 
and  the  horizons  were  illimitable.     Smith  sat  up 

124 


Relapsings 

in  the  mechanician's  seat  and  straightened  the 
loose  tie  under  the  soft  collar  of  his  working-shirt, 
smiling  grimly  as  his  thought  leaped  back  to  the 
dress  clothes  he  had  left  lying  on  the  bed  in  his 
Lawrenceville  quarters.  He  cherished  a  small 
hope  that  Mrs.  Baldwin  might  be  shocked  at 
the  soft  shirt  and  the  khaki.  It  would  serve  her 
right  for  taking  a  man  from  his  job. 

The  colonel  did  not  try  to  make  him  talk,  and 
the  fifteen-mile  flight  down  the  river  and  across 
into  the  hills  was  shortly  accomplished.  At  the 
stone-pillared  portal  he  got  out  to  open  the  gates. 
Down  the  road  a  little  distance  a  horseman  was 
coming  at  a  smart  gallop — at  least,  the  rider 
figured  as  a  man  for  the  gate-opener  until  he  saw 
that  it  was  Corona  Baldwin,  booted  and  spurred 
and  riding  a  man's  saddle. 

Smith  let  the  gray  car  go  on  its  way  up  the 
drive  without  him  and  held  the  gates  open  for 
the  horse  and  its  rider. 

"So  you  weakened,  did  you  ?  I'm  disappointed 
in  you,"  was  Miss  Baldwin's  greeting.  "You've 
made  me  lose  my  bet  with  Colonel-daddy.  I 
said  you  wouldn't  come." 

"I  had  no  business  to  come,"  he  answered 
morosely.     "  But  your  father  wouldn't  let  me  off." 

"Of  course,  he  wouldn't;  daddy  never  lets  any* 
125 


The  Real  Man 

body  off,  unless  they  owe  him  money.     Where  are 
your  evening  clothes  ?" 

Smith  let  the  lever  of  moroseness  slip  back  to 
the  grinning  notch.  "They  are  about  two  thou- 
sand miles  away,  and  probably  in  some  second- 
hand shop  by  this  time.  What  makes  you  think 
I  ever  wore  a  dress  suit?"  He  had  closed  the 
gates  and  was  walking  beside  her  horse  up  the 
driveway. 

"Oh,  I  just  guessed  it,"  she  returned  lightly, 
"and  if  you'll  hold  your  breath,  I'll  guess  again." 

"Don't,"  he  laughed.  "You  are  going  to  say 
that  at  some  time  in  my  life  I  knew  better  than 
to  accept  anybody's  dinner  invitation  undecorated. 
Maybe  there  was  such  a  time,  but  if  so,  I  am  trying 
to  forget  it." 

Her  laugh  was  good-naturedly  derisive. 

"You'll  forget  it  just  so  long  as  you  are  able 
to  content  yourself  in  a  construction  camp.  I 
know  the  symptoms.  There  are  times  when  I 
feel  as  if  I'd  simply  blow  up  if  I  couldn't  put  on 
the  oldest  things  I've  got  and  go  and  gallop  for 
miles  on  Shy,  and  other  times  when  I  want  to 
put  on  all  the  pretty  things  I  have  and  look 
soulful  and  talk  nonsense." 

"But  you've  been  doing  that — the  galloping, 
I  mean — all  your  life,  haven't  you?" 

126 


Relapsings 

"Not  quite.  There  were  three  wasted  years 
in  a  finishing  school  back  East.  It  is  when  I  get 
to  thinking  too  pointedly  about  them  that  I  have 
to  go  out  to  the  stable  and  saddle  Shy." 

They  had  reached  the  steps  of  the  pillared 
portico,  and  a  negro  stable-boy,  one  of  the  colonel's 
importations  from  Missouri,  was  waiting  to  take 
Miss  Baldwin's  horse.  Smith  knew  how  to  help 
a  woman  down  from  a  side-saddle;  but  the  two- 
stirruped  rig  stumped  him.  The  young  woman 
saw  his  momentary  embarrassment  and  laughed 
again  as  she  swung  out  of  her  saddle  to  stand 
beside  him  on  the  step. 

"The  women  don't  ride  that  way  in  your  part 
of  the  country  ?"  she  queried. 

"Not  yet." 

"I'm  sorry  for  them,"  she  scoffed.  And  then: 
"Come  on  in  and  meet  mamma;  you  look  as  if 
you  were  dreading  it,  and,  as  Colonel-daddy  says, 
it's  always  best  to  have  the  dreaded  things  over 
with." 

Smith  did  not  find  his  meeting  with  the  daugh- 
ter's mother  much  of  a  trial.  She  was  neither 
shocked  at  his  clothes  nor  disposed  to  be  hysteri- 
cally grateful  over  the  railroad-crossing  incident. 
A  large,  calm-eyed,  sensible  matron,  some  ten 
or  a  dozen  years  younger  than  the  colonel,  Smith 

127 


The  Real  Man 

put  her,  and  with  an  air  of  refinement  which  was 
reflected  in  every  interior  detail  of  her  house. 

Smith  had  not  expected  to  find  the  modern 
conveniences  in  a  Timanyoni  ranch-house,  but 
they  were  there.  The  room  to  which  the  Indian 
house-boy  led  him  had  a  brass  bedstead  and  a 
private  bath,  and  the  rugs,  if  not  true  Tabriz, 
were  a  handsome  imitation.  Below  stairs  it  was 
much  the  same.  The  dining-room  was  a  beamed 
baronial  hall,  with  a  rough-stone  fireplace  big 
enough  to  take  a  cord-wood  length,  and  on  the 
hearth  andirons  which  might  have  come  down 
from  the  Elizabethan  period.  It  was  mid-June 
and  the  fireplace  was  empty,  but  its  winter  promise 
was  so  hospitable  that  Smith  caught  himself 
hoping  that  he  might  stay  out  of  jail  long  enough 
to  be  able  to  see  it  in  action. 

The  dinner  was  strictly  a  family  meal,  with 
the  great  mahogany  table  shortened  to  make  it 
convenient  for  four.  There  were  cut  glass  and 
silver  and  snowy  napery,  and  Smith  was  glad 
that  the  colonel  did  most  of  the  talking.  Out  of 
the  past  a  thousand  tentacles  were  reaching  up 
to  drag  him  back  into  the  net  of  the  conventional. 
With  the  encompassments  to  help,  it  was  so 
desperately  easy  to  imagine  himself  once  more 
the  "debutantes'  darling,"  as  Westfall  had  often 

128 


Relapsings 

called  him  in  friendly  derision.  When  the  table- 
talk  became  general,  he  found  himself  joining  in, 
and  always  upon  the  lighter  side. 

By  the  time  the  dessert  came  on,  the  trans- 
formation was  complete.  It  was  J.  Montague, 
the  cotillon  leader,  who  sat  back  in  his  chair  and 
told  amiable  little  after-dinner  stories,  ignoring 
the  colonel's  heartinesses,  and  approving  himself 
in  the  eyes  of  his  hostess  as  a  dinner  guest  of  the 
true  urban  quality.  Now  and  then  he  surprised 
a  look  in  the  younger  woman's  eyes  which  was 
not  wholly  sympathetic,  he  thought;  but  the 
temptation  to  show  her  that  he  was  not  at  all  the 
kind  of  man  she  had  been  taking  him  for  was  too 
strong  to  be  resisted.  Since  she  had  seen  fit  to 
charge  him  with  a  dress-clothes  past  he  would 
show  her  that  he  could  live  up  to  it. 

Contrary  to  Smith's  expectations,  the  colonel 
did  not  usurp  him  immediately  after  dinner.  A 
gorgeous  sunset  was  flaming  over  the  western 
Timanyonis  and  there  was  time  for  a  quiet  stroll 
and  a  smoke  under  the  silver-leafed  cottonwoods 
with  his  hostess  for  a  companion.  In  the  little 
talk  and  walk,  Smith  found  himself  drawn  more 
and  more  to  the  calm-eyed,  well-bred  matron 
who  had  given  a  piquant  Corona  to  an  otherwise 
commonplace  world.     He  found  her  exceedingly 

129 


The  Real  Man 

well-informed;  she  had  read  the  books  that  he 
had  read,  she  had  heard  the  operas  that  he  had 
always  wanted  to  hear,  and  if  any  other  bond 
were  needed,  he  found  it  in  the  fact  that  she  was 
a  native  of  his  own  State. 

Under  such  leadings  the  relapse  became  an  ob- 
session. He  abandoned  himself  shamelessly  to 
the  J.  Montague  attitude,  and  the  events  crowd- 
ing so  thickly  between  the  tramp-like  flight  from 
Lawrenceville  and  the  present  were  as  if  they  had 
not  been.  Mrs.  Baldwin  saw  nothing  of  the  rude 
fighter  of  battles  her  daughter  had  drawn  for  her, 
and  wondered  a  little.  She  knew  Corona's  lean- 
ings, and  was  not  without  an  amused  impression 
that  Corona  would  not  find  this  later  Smith- 
sonian phase  altogether  to  her  liking. 

A  little  later  the  daughter,  who  had  been  to 
the  horse  corral  with  her  father,  came  to  join 
them,  and  the  mother,  smiling  inwardly,  saw  her 
impression  confirmed.  Smith  was  talking  frivo- 
lously of  thes  dansants  and  dinner-parties  and  club 
meets;  whereat  the  mother  smiled  and  Miss 
Corona's  lip  curled  scornfully. 

Smith  got  what  he  had  earned,  good  measure, 
pressed  down,  shaken  together  and  running  over, 
a  few  minutes  after  Mrs.  Baldwin  had  gone  in, 
leaving  him  to  finish  his  cigar  under  the  pillared 

130 


Relapsings 

portico  with  Corona  to  keep  him  company.  He 
never  knew  just  what  started  it,  unless  it  was  his 
careful  placing  of  a  chair  for  the  young  woman 
and  his  deferential — and  perfectly  natural — pause, 
standing,  until  she  was  seated. 

"Do,  for  pity's  sake,  sit  down !"  she  broke  out, 
half  petulantly.  And  when  he  had  obeyed: 
"Well,  you've  spoiled  it  all,  good  and  hard. 
Yesterday  I  thought  you  were  a  real  man,  but 
now  you  are  doing  your  best  to  tell  me  that  you 
were  only  shamming." 

Smith  was  still  so  far  besotted  as  to  be  unable 
to  imagine  wherein  he  had  offended. 

"Really  ?"  he  said.  "I'm  sorry  to  have  dis- 
appointed you.  All  I  need  now  to  make  me 
perfectly  happy  is  to  be  told  what  I  have  done." 

"It  isn't  what  you've  done;  it's  what  you 
are,"  she  retorted. 

"Well,  what  am  I  ?"  he  asked  patiently. 

Her  laugh  was  mocking.  "You  are  politely 
good-natured,  for  one  thing;  but  that  wasn't 
what  I  meant.  You  have  committed  the  un- 
pardonable sin  by  turning  out  to  be  just  one  of 
the  ninety-nine,  after  all.  If  you  knew  women 
the  least  little  bit  in  the  world,  you  would  know 
that  we  are  always  looking  for  the  hundredth 
man." 

131 


The  Real  Man 

Under  his  smile,  Smith  was  searching  the  Law- 
renceville  experience  records  minutely  in  the 
effort  to  find  something  that  would  even  re- 
motely match  this.  The  effort  was  a  complete  fail- 
ure. But  he  was  beginning  to  understand  what 
this  astonishingly  frank  young  woman  meant. 
She  had  seen  the  depth  of  his  relapse,  and  was 
calmly  deriding  him  for  it.  A  saving  sense  of 
humor  came  to  remind  him  of  his  own  sardonic 
musings  on  the  silent  drive  from  the  camp  with 
the  colonel;  how  he  had  railed  inwardly  at  the 
social  trivialities. 

"You  may  pile  it  on  as  thickly  as  you  please," 
he  said,  the  good-natured  smile  twisting  itself 
into  the  construction-camp  grin.  Then  he  added: 
"I  may  not  be  the  hundredth  man,  but  you,  at 
least,  are  the  hundredth  woman." 

"Why  ?  Because  I  say  the  first  thing  that  asks 
to  be  said  ?" 

"That,  and  some  other  things,"  he  rejoined 
guardedly.  Then,  with  malice  aforethought:  "Is 
it  one  of  the  requirements  that  your  centennial 
man  should  behave  himself  like  a  boor  at  a  dinner- 
table,  and  talk  shop  and  eat  with  his  knife?" 

"You  know  that  isn't  what  I  meant.  Manners 
don't  make  the  man.  It's  what  you  talked  about — 
the  trumpery  little  social  things  that  you  found 

132 


Relapsings 

your  keenest  pleasure  in  talking  about.  I  don't 
know  what  has  ever  taken  you  out  to  a  con- 
struction camp  and  persuaded  you  to  wear  khaki. 
Perhaps  it  was  only  what  Colonel-daddy  calls  a 
'throw-back/  I  don't  believe  you  ever  did  a 
day's  hard  work  in  your  life  before  you  came  to 
the  Timanyoni.,, 

Smith  looked  at  his  hands.  They  were  large 
and  shapely,  but  the  only  callouses  they  could 
show  were  accusingly  recent. 

"If  you  mean  manual  labor,  you  are  right,,,  he 
admitted  thoughtfully.  "Just  the  same,  I  think 
you  are  a  little  hard  on  me." 

It  was  growing  dark  by  this  time,  and  the  stars 
were  coming  out.  Some  one  had  turned  the 
lights  on  in  the  room  the  windows  of  which  opened 
upon  the  portico,  and  the  young  woman's  chair 
was  so  placed  that  he  could  still  see  her  face. 
She  was  smiling  rather  more  amicably  when  she 
said: 

"You  mustn't  take  it  too  hard.  It  isn't  you, 
personally,  you  know;  it's  the  type.  I've  met  it 
before.  I  didn't  meet  any  other  kind  during  my 
three  years  in  the  boarding-school;  nice,  pleasant 
young  gentlemen,  as  immaculately  dressed  as 
their  pocketbooks  would  allow,  up  in  all  the 
latest    little    courtesies    and    tea-table    shop-talk. 

133 


The  Real  Man 

They  were  all  men,  I  suppose,  but  I'm  afraid  a 
good  many  of  them  had  never  found  it  out — will 
never  find  it  out.  I've  been  calling  it  environ- 
ment; I  don't  like  to  admit  that  the  race  is  going 
down-hill." 

By  this  time  the  sardonic  humor  was  once 
more  in  full  possession  and  he  was  enjoying  her 
keenly. 

"Go  on,"  he  said.  "This  is  my  night  off." 
"I've  said  enough;  too  much,  perhaps.  But 
a  little  while  ago  at  the  dinner-table,  and  again 
out  there  in  the  grove  where  you  were  walking 
with  mamma,  you  reminded  me  so  forcibly  of  a 
man  whom  I  met  just  for  a  part  of  one  evening 
about  a  year  ago." 

"Tell  me  about  him,"  he  urged. 
"I  was  coming  back  from  school  and  I  stopped 
over  in  a  small  town  in  the  Middle  West  to  visit 
some  old  friends  of  mamma's.  There  were  young 
people  in  the  family,  and  one  evening  they  gave 
a  lawn-party  for  me.  I  met  dozens  of  the  pleasant 
young  gentlemen,  more  than  I  had  ever  seen 
together  at  any  one  time  before;  clerks  and  book- 
keepers, and  rich  farmers'  sons  who  had  been  to 
college." 

"But  the  man  of  whom  I  am  reminding  you?" 
"He  was  one  of  them.     He  drove  over  from 

134 


Relapsings 

some  neighboring  town  in  his  natty  little  auto- 
mobile and  gave  me  fully  an  hour  of  his  valuable 
time.     He  made  me  perfectly  furious!" 

"Poor  you  !"  laughed  Smith;  but  he  was  thank- 
ful that  the  camp  sunburn  and  his  four  weeks' 
beard  were  safeguarding  his  identity.  "I  hope 
you  didn't  tell  him  so.  He  was  probably  doing  his 
level  best  to  give  you  a  good  time  in  the  only 
definition  of  the  term  that  the  girls  of  his  own  set 
had  ever  given  him.  But  why  the  fury  in  his 
case  in  particular?" 

"Just  because,  I  suppose.  He  was  rather 
good-looking,  you  know;  and  down  underneath 
all  the  airy  little  things  he  persisted  in  talking 
about  it  seemed  as  if  I  could  now  and  then  get 
tiny  glimpses  of  something  that  might  be  a  real 
man,  a  strong  man.  I  remember  he  told  me  he 
was  a  bank  cashier  and  that  he  danced.  He  was 
quite  hopeless,  of  course.  Without  being  what 
you  would  call  conceited,  you  could  see  that  the 
crust  was  so  thick  that  nothing  short  of  an  earth- 
quake would  ever  break  it." 

"But  the  earthquakes  do  come,  once  in  a  blue 
moon,"  he  said,  still  smiling  at  her.  "Let's  get 
it  straight.  You  are  not  trying  to  tell  me  that 
you  object  to  decent  clothes  and  good  manners 
per  se,  are  you  ?" 

135 


The  Real  Man 

"Not  at  all;  I  like  them  both.  But  the  hun- 
dredth man  won't  let  either  his  clothes  or  his  man- 
ners wear  him;   he'll  wear  them." 

"Still,  you  think  the  type  of  man  you  have 
been  describing  is  entirely  hopeless;  that  was  the 
word  you  used,  I  believe." 

The  colonel  was  coming  out,  and  he  had  stopped 
in  the  doorway  to  light  a  long-stemmed  pipe. 
The  young  woman  got  up  and  fluffed  her  hair 
with  the  ends  of  her  fingers — a  little  gesture  which 
Smith  remembered,  recalling  it  from  the  night  of 
the  far-away  lawn-party. 

"Daddy  wants  you,  and  I'll  have  to  vanish," 
she  said;  "but  I'll  answer  your  question  before 
I  go.  Types  are  always  hopeless;  it's  only  the 
hundredth  man  who  isn't.  It's  a  great  pity  you 
couldn't  go  on  whipping  claim-jumpers  all  the 
rest  of  your  life,  Mr.  Smith.  Don't  you  think 
so  ?  Good  night.  We'll  meet  again  at  break- 
fast. Daddy  isn't  going  to  let  you  get  away  short 
of  a  night's  lodging,  I  know." 

Two  cigars  for  Smith  and  four  pipes  for  the 
colonel  further  along,  the  tall  Missourian  rose 
out  of  the  split-bottomed  chair  which  he  had 
drawn  up  to  face  the  guest's  and  rapped  the 
ashes  from  the  bowl  of  the  corn-cob  into  the 
palm  of  his  hand. 

136 


Relapsings 

"I  think  you've  got  it  all  now,  Smith,  every 
last  crook  and  turn  of  it,  and  I  reckon  you're 
tired  enough  to  run  away  to  bed.  You  see  just 
where  we  stand,  and  how  little  we've  got  to  go 
on.  If  I've  about  talked  an  arm  off  of  you,  it's 
for  your  own  good.  I  don't  know  how  you've 
made  up  your  mind,  or  if  you've  made  it  up  at 
all;  but  it  was  only  fair  to  show  you  how  little 
chance  we've  got  on  anything  short  of  a  miracle. 
I  wouldn't  want  to  see  you  butt  your  head  against 
a  stone  wall,  and  that's  about  what  it  looks  like 
to  me." 

Smith  took  a  turn  up  and  down  the  stone- 
flagged  floor  of  the  portico  with  his  hands  behind 
him.  Truly,  the  case  of  Timanyoni  Ditch  was 
desperate;  even  more  desperate  than  he  had 
supposed.  Figuring  as  the  level-headed  bank 
cashier  of  the  former  days,  he  told  himself  soberly 
that  no  man  in  his  senses  would  touch  it  with  a 
ten-foot  pole.  Then  the  laughing  gibes  of  the 
hundredth  woman — gibes  which  had  cut  far 
deeper  than  she  had  imagined — came  back  to 
send  the  blood  surging  through  his  veins.  It 
would  be  worth  something  to  be  able  to  work 
the  miracle  the  colonel  had  spoken  of;  and 
afterward.  .  .  . 

Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin  was  still  tapping  his 

137 


The  Real  Man 

palm  absently  with  the  pipe  when  Smith   came 
back  and  said  abruptly: 

"I  have  decided,  Colonel.  I'll  start  in  with 
you  to-morrow  morning,  and  we'll  pull  this  mired 
scheme  of  yours  out  of  the  mud,  or  break  a  leg 
trying  to.  But  you  mustn't  forget  what  I  told 
you  out  at  the  camp.  Right  in  the  middle  of 
things  I  may  go  rotten  on  you  and  drop  out." 


138 


The  Sick  Project 

BREWSTER,  owing  its  beginnings  to  the 
completion  of  the  Nevada  Short  Line,  and 
the  fact  that  the  railroad  builders  designated  it 
as  a  division  headquarters,  had  grown  into  city- 
charter  size  and  importance  with  the  opening  of 
the  gold-mines  in  the  Gloria  district,  and  the 
transformation  of  the  surrounding  park  grass- 
lands into  cultivated  ranches.  To  the  growth 
and  prosperity  of  the  intermountain  city  a 
summer  hotel  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Topaz — 
reached  only  by  stage  from  Brewster — had  added 
its  influence;  and  since  the  hotel  brought  people 
with  well-lined  pocketbooks,  there  was  a  field 
for  the  enthusiastic  real-estate  promoters  whose 
offices  filled  all  the  odd  corners  in  the  Hophra 
House  block. 

In  one  of  these  offices,  on  the  morning  fol- 
lowing Smith's  first  dinner  at  Hillcrest,  a  rather 
caustic  colloquy  was  in  progress  between  the  man 
whose  name  appeared  in  gilt  lettering  on  the 
front  windows  and  one  of  his  unofficial  assistants. 

139 


The  Real  Man 

Crawford  Stanton,  he  of  the  window  name,  was 
a  man  of  many  personalities.  To  summer  visitors 
with  money  to  invest,  he  was  the  genial  promoter, 
and  if  there  were  suggestions  of  iron  hardness 
in  the  sharp  jaw  and  in  the  smoothly  shaven  face 
and  flinty  eyes,  there  was  also  a  pleasant  reminder 
of  Eastern  business  methods  and  alertness  in  the 
promoter's  manner.  But  Lanterby,  tilting  un- 
easily in  the  "confidential"  chair  at  the  desk-end, 
knew  another  and  more  biting  side  of  Mr.  Stan- 
ton, as  a  hired  man  will. 

"Good  Gad  !  do  you  sit  there  and  tell  me  that 
the  three  of  them  let  that  hobo  of  Williams's  push 
them  off  the  map?"  Stanton  was  demanding 
raucously.  "I  thought  you  had  at  least  sense 
enough  to  last  you  overnight.  I  told  you  to  pick 
out  a  bunch  with  sand — fellows  that  could  hang 
on  and  put  up  a  fight  if  they  had  to.  And  you 
say  all  this  happened  the  day  before  yesterday: 
how  does  it  come  that  you  are  just  now  report- 
ing  it  r 

The  hard-faced  henchman  in  the  tilting  chair 
made  such  explanations  as  he  could. 

"Boogerfield  and  his  two  partners  've  been 
hidin'  out  somewhere;  I  allow  they  was  plumb 
ashamed  to  come  in  and  tell  how  they'd  let  one 
man  run  'em  ofT.    You'd  think  that  curly-whisk- 

140 


The  Sick  Project 

ered  helper  o'  Williams's  was  a  holy  terror,  to 
hear  Boogerfield  talk.  They'd  left  their  artillery 
in  the  chuck-wagon,  and  they  say  he  come  at  'em 
barehanded — with  the  colonel's  girl  settin'  in  the 
ortamobile  a-lookin'  on.  Boogerfield  wants  to 
know  who's  goin'  to  pay  him  for  them  two 
Winchesters  that  His  Whiskers  bu'sted  over  the 
wagon-wheel." 

Mr.  Crawford  Stanton  was  carelessly  uncon- 
cerned about  the  claim-jumpers'  loss,  either  in 
gear  or  skin. 

"Damn  the  Winchesters!"  he  said  morosely. 
"What  do  you  know  about  this  fellow  Smith  ? 
Who  is  he,  and  where  did  he  come  from  ?" 

Lanterby  told  all  that  was  known  of  Smith,  and 
had  no  difficulty  in  compressing  it  into  a  single 
sentence.  Stanton  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and 
the  lids  of  the  flinty  eyes  narrowed  thoughtfully. 

"There's  a  lot  more  to  it  than  that,"  he  said 
incisively  at  the  end  of  the  reflective  pause. 
Then  he  added  a  curt  order:  "Make  it  your  job 
to  find  out." 

Lanterby  moved  uneasily  in  his  insecure  seat, 
but  before  he  could  speak,  his  employer  went  on 
again,  changing  the  topic  abruptly,  but  still 
keeping  within  the  faultfinding  boundaries. 

"What  sort  of  a  screw  has  gone  loose  in  your 

141 


The  Real  Man 

deal  with  the  railroad  men  ?  I  thought  you  told 
me  you  had  it  fixed  with  the  yard  crews  so  that 
Williams's  material  would  have  a  chance  to  season 
a  while  in  the  Brewster  yards  before  it  was  de- 
livered. They  got  two  cars  of  cement  and  one  of 
steel  the  day  before  yesterday,  and  the  delivery 
was  made  within  three  hours  after  the  stuff  came 
in  from  the  East." 

Again  Lanterby  tried  to  explain. 

"Dougherty,  the  yardmaster,  took  the  bank 
roll  I  slipped  him,  all  right  enough,  and  promised 
to  help  out.  But  he's  scared  of  Maxwell.  He 
told  me  this  mornin'  that  Colonel  Baldwin  has 
been  kickin'  like  blazes  to  Maxwell  about  the 
delays." 

"Maxwell  is  a  thick-headed  ass!"  exploded  the 
faultfinder.  "I've  done  everything  on  earth  ex- 
cept to  tell  him  outright  in  so  many  words  that 
his  entire  railroad  outfit,  from  President  Brewster 
down,  is  lined  up  on  the  other  side  of  the  fight. 
But  go  on  with  your  dickering.  Jerk  Dougherty 
into  line  and  tell  him  that  nothing  is  going  to 
happen  to  him  if  he  doesn't  welsh  on  us.  Hint 
to  him  that  we  can  pull  a  longer  string  than 
Dick  Maxwell  can,  if  it  comes  to  a  show-down. 
Now  go  out  and  find  Shaw.  I  want  him,  and 
I  want  him  right  now." 

142 


The  Sick  Project 

The  hard-faced  man  who  looked  as  if  he  might 
be  a  broken-down  gambler  unjointed  his  leg-hold 
upon  the  tilted  chair  and  went  out;  and  a  few 
minutes  later  another  of  Stanton's  pay-roll  men 
drifted  in.  He  was  a  young  fellow  with  sleepy 
eyes  and  cigarette  stains  on  his  fingers,  and  he 
would  have  passed  readily  for  a  railroad  clerk 
out  of  a  job,  which  was  what  he  really  was. 

"Well?"  snapped  Stanton  when  the  incomer 
had  taken  the  chair  lately  vacated  by  Lan- 
terby. 

"I  shadowed  the  colonel,  as  you  told  me  to," 
said  the  young  man.  "He  went  up  to  Red  Butte 
to  see  if  he  couldn't  rope  in  some  of  the  old-timers 
on  his  ditch  project.  He  was  trying  to  sell  some 
treasury  stock.  His  one-horse  company  is  about 
out  of  money.  Mickle,  a  clerk  in  Kinzie's  bank, 
tells  me  that  the  ditch  company's  balance  is 
drawn  down  to  a  few  thousand  dollars,  with  no 
more  coming  in." 

"Did  the  colonel  succeed  in  making  a  raise  in 
Red  Butte?" 

"Nary,"  said  the  spy  nonchalantly.  "Drake, 
the  banker  up  there,  was  his  one  best  bet;  but 
I  got  a  man  I  know  to  give  Drake  a  pointer,  and 
he  curled  up  like  a  hedgehog  when  you  poke  it 
with  a  sharp  stick." 

143 


The  Real  Man 

"That's  better.  The  colonel  came  back  yes- 
terday, didn't  he  ?" 

" Yesterday  afternoon.  His  wife  and  daughter 
met  him  at  the  railroad-station  with  the  auto- 
mobile, and  told  him  something  or  other  that 
made  him  hire  old  man  Shuey  to  drive  the  women 
out  home  while  he  took  the  roadster  and  went  up 
to  the  dam." 

"You  went  along  ?"  queried  Stanton. 

"As  soon  as  I  could  find  somebody  to  drive  me; 
yes.  That  wasn't  right  away,  though;  and  when 
I  got  there  I  had  to  leave  my  buzz-wagon  back 
in  the  hills  a  piece  and  walk  into  camp.  When 
I  inquired  around  I  found  that  the  colonel  was 
shut  up  in  Williams's  office  with  a  fellow  named 
Smith.  They  were  finishing  up  whatever  they'd 
been  talking  about  when  I  got  a  place  to  listen 
in;  but  I  heard  enough  to  make  me  suspect  that 
something  new  had  broken  loose.  Just  as  they 
were  getting  ready  to  quit,  the  colonel  was  saying: 
'That  settles  it,  Smith;  you've  got  to  come  over 
into' — I  didn't  catch  the  name  of  the  place — 'and 
help  us.  Williams  tells  me  you  refused  him,  but 
you  can't  refuse  me. '  There  was  more  of  it,  but 
they  had  opened  the  door  and  I  had  to  skin  out. 
A  little  later  they  drove  off  together  in  the  colonel's 
car,  coming  on  through  town  to  go  out  to  the 

144 


The  Sick  Project 

ranch,  I  suppose,  because  Smith  didn't  show  up 
any  more  at  the  camp." 

Again  the  gentleman  with  the  sharp  jaw  took 
time  for  narrow-eyed  reflection. 

"You'll  have  to  switch  over  from  the  colonel 
to  this  fellow  Smith  for  the  present,  Shaw,"  he 
decided,  at  length.  "Lanterby  is  supposed  to  be 
on  that  part  of  the  job,  but  he's  altogether  too 
coarse-handed.  I  want  to  know  who  Smith  is, 
and  where  he  hails  from,  and  how  he  comes  to  be 
butting  in.  Lanterby  said  at  first,  and  says  yet, 
that  he  is  just  a  common  hobo  tumbling  in  from 
the  outside.  It's  pretty  evident  that  Lanterby 
has  another  guess  coming.  You  look  him  up  and 
do  it  quick." 

The  young  man  glanced  up  with  a  faint  warm- 
ing of  avarice  in  his  sleepy  eyes.  "It'll  most 
likely  run  into  money — for  expenses,"  he  sug- 
gested. 

"For  graft,  you  mean,"  snapped  Stanton. 
Then  he  had  it  out  with  this  second  subordinate 
in  crisp  English.  "I'm  onto  you  with  both  feet, 
Shaw;  every  crook  and  turn  of  you.  More  than 
that,  I  know  why  you  were  fired  out  of  Maxwell's 
office;  you've  got  sticky  fingers.  That's  all  right 
with  me  up  to  a  certain  point,  but  beyond  that 
point  you  get  off.    Understand?" 

145 


The  Real  Man 

Shaw  made  no  answer  in  direct  terms,  but  if 
his  employer  had  been  watching  the  heavy-lidded 
eyes  he  might  have  seen  in  them  the  shadow  of  a 
thing  much  more  dangerous  than  plain  dis- 
honesty: a  passing  shadow  of  the  fear  that  makes 
for  treachery  when  the  sharp  need  for  self-protec- 
tion arises. 

"I'll  try  to  find  out  about  the  hobo,"  he  said, 
with  fair  enough  lip-loyalty,  and  after  he  had 
rolled  a  fresh  cigarette  he  went  away  to  begin 
the  mining  operations  which  might  promise  to 
unearth  Smith's  record. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  when  Shaw  left  the  real- 
estate  office  in  the  Hophra  House  block.  Half 
an  hour  earlier  Smith  had  come  to  town  with 
the  colonel  in  the  roadster,  and  the  two  had  shut 
themselves  up  in  the  colonel's  private  room  in 
the  Timanyoni  Ditch  Company's  town  office  in 
the  Barker  Building,  which  was  two  squares 
down  the  street  from  the  Hophra  House.  Sum- 
moned promptly,  Martin,  the  bookkeeper,  had 
brought  in  his  statements  and  balance-sheets, 
and  the  new  officer,  who  was  as  yet  without  a 
title,  had  struck  out  his  plan  of  campaign. 

"  'Amortization'  is  the  word,  Colonel,"  was 
Smith's  prompt  verdict  after  he  had  gone  over 
Martin's  summaries.     "The  best  way  to  get  at 

146 


The  Sick  Project 

it  now  is  to  wipe  the  slate  clean  and  begin  over 
again." 

The  ranchman  president  was  chuckling  soberly. 

"Once  more  you'll  have  to  show  me,  John," 
he  said.  "We  folks  out  here  in  the  hills  are  not 
up  in  all  the  Wall  Street  crinkles." 

"You  don't  know  the  word  ?  It  means  to 
scrap  the  old  machinery  to  make  room  for  the 
new,"  Smith  explained.  "In  modern  business  it 
is  the  process  of  extinguishing  a  corporation: 
closing  it  up  and  burying  it  in  another  and  bigger 
one,  usually.  That  is  what  we  must  do  with 
Timanyoni  Ditch." 

"I'm  getting  you,  a  little  at  a  time,"  said  the 
colonel,  taking  his  first  lesson  in  high  finance  as 
a  duck  takes  to  the  water.  Then  he  added:  "It 
won't  take  much  of  a  lick  to  kill  off  the  old  com- 
pany, in  the  shape  it's  got  into  now.  How  will 
you  work  it  ?" 

Smith  had  the  plan  at  his  fingers'  ends.  With 
the  daring  of  all  the  perils  had  come  a  fresh  access 
of  fighting  fitness  that  made  him  feel  as  if  he  could 
cope  with  anything. 

"We  must  close  up  the  company's  affairs  and 
then  reorganize  promptly  and,  with  just  as  little 
noise  as  may  be,  form  another  company — which 
we  will   call  Timanyoni    High   Line — and   let   it 

H7 


The  Real  Man 

take  over  the  old  outfit,  stock,  liabilities,  and  as- 
sets entire.  You  say  your  present  capital  stock  is 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars;  is  it  all  paid  in?" 

"Every  dollar  of  it  except  a  little  for  a  few 
shares  of  treasury  stock  that  we've  been  holding 
for  emergencies.  As  I  told  you  last  night,  I  went 
up  to  Red  Butte  and  tried  to  sell  that  treasury 
stock  to  Drake,  the  banker;  but  he  wouldn't 
bite." 

"Which  was  mighty  lucky  for  us,"  Smith  put 
in.  "It  would  have  queered  us  beautifully  if  he 
had,  and  the  story  had  got  out  that  the  president 
of  Timanyoni  Ditch  had  sold  a  block  of  treasury 
stock  at  thirty-nine." 

"Well,  he  didn't  take  it,"  said  the  colonel. 
"He  was  so  blame'  chilly  that  I  like  to  froze  to 
death  before  I  could  get  out  of  the  bank." 

"All  right;  then  we'll  go  on.  This  new  com- 
pany that  I  am  speaking  of  will  be  capitalized 
at,  say,  an  even  half  million.  To  the  present 
holders  of  Timanyoni  Ditch  we'll  give  the  new 
stock  for  the  old,  share  for  share,  with  a  bonus 
of  twenty-five  shares  of  the  new  stock  for  every 
twenty-five  shares  of  the  old  surrendered  and 
exchanged.  This  will  be  practically  giving  the 
present  shareholders  two  for  one.  Will  that 
satisfy  them  ?" 

148 


The  Sick  Project 

This  time  Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin's  smile  was 
grim. 

"You're  just  juggling  now,  John,  and  you 
know  it.  Out  here  on  the  woolly  edge  of  things 
a  dollar  is  just  a  plain  iron  dollar,  and  you  can't 
make  it  two  merely  by  calling  it  so." 

"Never  you  mind  about  that,"  cut  in  the  new 
financier.  "The  first  rule  of  investment  is  that 
a  dollar  is  worth  just  what  it  will  earn  in  divi- 
dends; no  more,  and  equally  no  less.  You  know, 
and  I  know,  that  if  we  can  pull  this  thing  through 
there  is  a  barrel  of  money  in  it  for  all  con- 
cerned. But  we'll  skip  that  part  of  it  and  stick 
to  the  details.  At  two  to  one  for  the  amortiza- 
tion of  the  old  company  we  shall  still  have  some- 
thing like  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  treasury 
stock  upon  which  to  realize  for  the  new  capital 
needed,  and  that  will  be  amply  sufficient  to  com- 
plete the  dam  and  the  ditches  and  to  provide  a 
fighting  fund.  Now  then,  tell  me  this:  how  near 
can  we  come  to  placing  that  treasury  stock  right 
here  in  Timanyoni  Park  ?  In  other  words,  can 
the  money  be  had  here  at  any  price?" 

"You  mean  that  you  don't  want  to  go  East 
to  raise  it  ?" 

"I  mean  that  we  haven't  time.  More  than 
that,  it's  up  to  us  to  keep  this  thing  in  the  family, 

149 


The  Real  Man 

so  to  speak;  and  the  moment  we  go  into  other 
markets,  we  are  getting  over  into  the  enemy's 
country.  I'm  not  saying  that  the  money  couldn't 
be  raised  in  New  York;  but  if  we  should  go  there, 
the  trust  would  have  an  underhold  on  us,  right 
from  the  start." 

"I  see,"  said  the  colonel,  who  was  indeed  see- 
ing many  things  that  his  simple-hearted  philos- 
ophy had  never  dreamed  of;  and  then  he  answered 
the  direct  question.  "There  is  plenty  of  money 
right  here  in  the  Timanyonis;  not  all  of  it  in 
Brewster,  perhaps,  but  in  the  country  among  the 
Gloria  and  Little  Butte  mine  owners,  smelter 
men,  and  the  better  class  of  ranchmen.  Take 
Dick  Maxwell,  the  railroad  superintendent — he's 
a  miner  on  the  side,  you  know — he  could  put  ten 
or  twenty  thousand  more  into  it  without  turning 
a  hair;    and  so  could  some  of  the  others." 

Smith  nodded.  He  was  getting  his  second 
wind  now,  and  the  race  promised  to  be  a  keen 
joy. 

"But  they  would  have  to  be  'shown,'  you 
think  ?"  he  suggested.  "All  right;  we'll  proceed 
to  show  them.  Now  we  can  come  down  to  present 
necessities.  We've  got  to  keep  the  work  going — 
and  speed  it  up  to  the  limit:  we  ought  to  double 
Williams's  force  at  once — put  on  a  night  shift  to 

150 


The  Sick  Project 

work  by  electric  light.  I  took  the  liberty  of 
telephoning  Williams  from  Hillcrest  this  morning 
while  you  were  reading  your  newspaper.  I  told 
him  to  wire  advertisements  for  more  labor  to  the 
newspapers  in  Denver,  offering  wages  high  enough 
to  make  the  thing  look  attractive." 

The  colonel  blinked  twice  and  swallowed  hard. 

"Say,  John,"  he  said,  leaning  across  the  table- 
desk;  "you've  sure  got  your  nerve  with  you.  Do 
you  know  what  our  present  bank  balance  hap- 
pens to  be  ?" 

"No;  I  was  just  coming  to  that,"  said  the 
reorganizer,  smiling  easily.     "How  much  is  it?" 

"It  is  under  five  thousand  dollars,  and  a  good 
part  of  that  is  owing  to  the  cement  people!" 

"Never  mind;  don't  get  nervous,"  was  the 
reassuring  rejoinder.  "We  are  going  to  make  it 
bigger  in  a  few  minutes,  I  hope.  Who  is  your 
banker  here  ?" 

"Dave  Kinzie,  of  the  Brewster  City  National." 

"Tell  me  a  little  something  about  Mr.  Kinzie 
before  we  go  down  to  see  him;  just  brief  him  for 
me  as  a  man,  I  mean." 

The  colonel  was  shaking  his  head  slowly. 

"He's  what  you  might  call  a  twenty-ton  op- 
timist, Dave  is;  solid,  a  little  slow  and  sure,  but 
the  biggest  boomer  in  the  West,  if  you  can  get 

I5i 


The  Real  Man 

him  started — believes  in  the  resources  of  the 
country  and  all  that.  But  you  can't  borrow 
money  from  him  without  security,  if  that's  what 
you're  aiming  to  do." 

"Can't  we  ?"  smiled  the  young  man  who  knew 
banks  and  bankers.  "Let's  go  and  see.  You 
never  know  until  you  try,  Colonel;  and  even 
then  you're  not  always  dead  certain.  Take  me 
around  and  introduce  me  to  this  Mr.  David 
Kinzie — and,  hold  on;  it  may  be  as  well  to  give 
me  a  handle  of  some  sort  before  we  begin  to  talk 
money  with  other  people.  What  are  you  going 
to  call  me  in  this  new  scheme  of  things  ?" 

The  big  Missourian's  laugh  was  a  hearty  guffaw. 

"Gosh  all  Friday!  the  way  it's  starting  out 
you're  the  whole  works,  Smith  !  Just  name  your 
own  name,  and  we'll  cinch  it  for  you." 

"I  suppose  you've  already  got  a  secretary  and 
treasurer  ?" 

"We  had  up  to  a  few  days  ago,  before  Buck 
Gardner  sold  out  his  stock  to  Crawford  Stanton." 

"Haven't  you  had  a  board  meeting  since?" 

"Yes;  but  only  to  accept  Gardner's  resigna- 
tion. We  didn't  elect  anybody  else — nobody 
wanted  the  place;   every  last  man  of  'em  shied." 

"Naturally;  not  seeing  any  immediate  pros- 
pects of  having  anything  to  treasure,"  laughed 

152 


The  Sick  Project 

Smith.  "But  that  will  do.  You  may  introduce 
me  to  Kinzie  as  your  acting  financial  secretary, 
if  you  like.  Now  one  more  question:  what  is 
Kinzie's  attitude  toward  Timanyoni  Ditch?" 

"At  first  it  was  all  kinds  of  friendly;  he  is  a 
stockholder  in  a  small  way,  and  he's  heart  and 
soul  for  anything  that  promises  to  build  up  the 
country,  as  I  told  you.  But  after  a  while  he  began 
to  cool  down  a  little,  and  now — well,  I  don't 
know;  I  hate  to  think  it  of  Dave,  but  I'm 
afraid  he's  leaning  the  other  way,  toward  these 
Eastern  fellows.  Little  things  he  has  let  fall, 
and  this  last  deal  in  which  he  tried  to  cover  Stan- 
ton's tracks  in  the  stock-buying  from  Gardner 
and  Boiling;    they  all  point  that  way." 

"That  is  natural,  too,"  said  Smith,  whose 
point  of  view  was  always  unobscured  in  any  battle 
of  business.  "The  big  company  would  be  a  better 
customer  for  the  bank  than  your  little  one  could 
ever  hope  to  be.  I  guess  that's  all  for  the  present. 
If  you're  ready,  we'll  go  down  and  face  the  music. 
Take  me  to  the  Brewster  City  National  and  in- 
troduce me  to  Mr.  Kinzie;  then  you  can  stand 
by  and  watch  the  wheels  go  round." 

"By  Janders!"  said  the  colonel  with  an  open 
smile;  "I  believe  you'd  just  as  soon  tackle  a 
banker  as  to  eat  your  dinner;    and  I'd  about  as 

153 


The  Real  Man 

soon  take  a  horsewhipping.  Come  on;  I'll  steer 
you  up  against  Dave,  but  I'm  telling  you  right 
now  that  the  steering  is  about  all  you  can  count 
on  from  me." 

It  was  while  they  were  crossing  the  street  to- 
gether and  turning  down  toward  the  Alameda 
Avenue  corner  where  the  Brewster  City  National 
Bank  windows  looked  over  into  the  windows  of 
the  Hophra  House  block  opposite,  that  Mr.  Craw- 
ford Stanton  had  his  third  morning  caller,  a 
thick-set  barrel-bodied  man  with  little  pig-like 
eyes,  closely  cropped  hair,  a  bristling  mustache, 
and  a  wooden  leg  of  the  home-made  sort — a  peg 
with  a  hollowed  bowl  for  the  bent  knee  and  a 
slat-like  extension  to  go  up  the  outside  of  the  leg 
to  be  stapled  to  a  leathern  belt.  Across  one  of 
the  swarthy  cheeks  there  was  a  broad  scar  that 
looked,  at  first  sight,  like  a  dash  of  blue  paint. 
It  was  a  knife  slash  got  in  the  battle  with  Mexican 
Ruiz  in  which  the  thick-set  man  had  lost  his  leg. 
After  the  Mexican  had  brought  him  down  with  a 
bullet,  he  had  added  his  mark  as  he  had  said  he 
would;  laying  the  big  man's  cheek  open  and  rub- 
bing the  powder  from  a  chewed  cartridge  into  the 
wound.  Afterward,  the  men  of  the  camps  called 
the  cripple  "Pegleg"  or  "Blue  Pete"  indifferently, 
though  not  to  his  face.     For  though  the  fat  face 

154 


The  Sick  Project 

was  always  relaxed  in  a  good-natured  smile,  the 
crippled  saloon-keeper  was  of  those  who  kill  with 
the  knife;  and  since  he  could  not  pursue,  he  was 
fain  to  cajole  the  prey  within  reach. 

Stanton  looked  up  from  his  desk  when  the  pad- 
and-click  of  the  cripple's  step  came  in  from  the 
street. 

"Hello,  Simms,"  he  said,  in  curt  greeting. 
"Want  to  see  me  ?" 

"Uh-huh;   for  a  minute  or  so.     Busy?" 

"Never  too  busy  to  talk  business.     Sit  down." 

Simms  threw  the  brim  of  his  soft  hat  up  with 
a  backhanded  stroke  and  shook  his  head.  "It 
ain't  worth  while;  and  I  gotta  get  back  to  camp. 
I  blew  in  to  tell  y'u  there's  a  fella  out  there  that 
needs  th'  sand-bag." 

"Who  is  it?" 

"Fella  name'  Smith.  He's  showin'  'em  how 
to  cut  too  many  corners — pace-settin',  he  calls 
it.  First  thing  they  know,  they'll  get  the  con- 
crete up  to  where  the  high  water  won't  bu'st  it 
out. 

Stanton's  laugh  was  impatient. 

"Don't  make  any  mistake  of  that  sort,  Simms," 
he  said.  "We  don't  want  the  dam  destroyed; 
we'd  work  just  as  hard  as  they  would  to  prevent 
that.    All  we  want  is  to  have  other  people  think 

155 


The  Real  Man 

it's  likely  to  go  out— think  it  hard  enough  to 
keep  them  from  putting  up  any  more  money. 
Let  that  go.  Is  there  any  more  fresh  talk — among 
the  men?"  Stanton  prided  himself  a  little  upon 
the  underground  wire-pulling  which  had  resulted 
in  putting  Simms  on  the  ground  as  the  keeper  of 
the  construction-camp  canteen.  It  was  a  fairly 
original  way  of  keeping  a  listening  ear  open  for 
the  camp  gossip. 

"Little,"  said  the  cripple  briefly.  "This  here 
blink-blank  fella  Smith's  been  tellin'  Williams 
that  I  ort  to  be  run  off  th'  reservation;  says  th' 
booze  puts  the  brake  on  for  speed." 

"So  it  does,"  agreed  Stanton  musingly.  "But 
I  guess  you  can  stay  a  while  longer.  What  do 
the  men  say  about  Smith  ?" 

"Whole  heap  o'  things.  The  best  guess  is  that 
he's  a  jail-break'  from  somewheres  back  in  the 
States.  He  ain't  no  common  'bo;  that's  a  dead 
cinch.  Gatrow,  the  quarry  foreman,  puts  it  up 
that  he  done  something  he  had  to  run  for." 

"Get  him  drunk  and  find  out,"  suggested 
Stanton  shortly. 

"Not  him,"  said  the  round-faced  villain,  with 
the  ingratiating  smile  wrinkling  at  the  corners  of 
the  fat-embedded  eyes.  "He's  the  take-a-drink- 
or-let-it-alone  kind." 

iS6 


The  Sick  Project 

"Well,  keep  your  eye  on  him  and  your  ears 
open.  I  have  a  notion  that  he's  been  sent  here — 
by  some  outfit  that  means  to  buck  us.  If  he  hasn't 
any  backing " 

The  interruption  was  the  hurried  incoming  of 
the  young  man  with  sleepy  eyes  and  the  cigarette 
stains  on  his  fingers,  and  for  once  in  a  way  he  was 
stirred  out  of  his  customary  attitude  of  cynical 
indifference. 

"Smith  and  Colonel  Baldwin  are  over  yonder 
in  Kinzie's  private  office/'  he  reported  hastily. 
"Before  they  shut  the  door  I  heard  Baldwin  in- 
troducing Smith  as  the  new  acting  financial 
secretary  of  the  Timanyoni  Ditch  Company !" 


157 


XI 

When  Greek  Meets  Greek 

SMITH  allowed  himself  ten  brief  seconds  for  a 
swift  eye-measuring  of  the  square-shouldered, 
stockily  built  man  with  a  gray  face  and  stubbly 
mustache  sitting  in  the  chair  of  authority  at  the 
Brewster  City  National  before  he  chose  his  line 
of  attack. 

"We  are  not  going  to  cut  very  deeply  into 
your  time  this  morning,  Mr.  Kinzie,"  he  began 
when  the  eye-appraisal  had  given  him  his  cue. 
"You  know  the  history  of  Timanyoni  Ditch  up 
to  the  present,  and  you  have  no  doubt  had  your 
own  misgivings  about  the  wisdom  of  its  financing 
on  such  a  small  scale,  and  as  a  purely  local  enter- 
prise. Others  have  had  the  same  misgivings, 
and — well,  to  cut  out  the  details,  there  is  to  be  a 
complete  reorganization  of  the  company  on  a  new 
basis,  and  we  are  here  to  offer  to  take  your  personal 
allotment  of  the  stock  off  your  hands  at  par  for 
cash.  Colonel  Baldwin  has  stipulated  that  his 
friends  in  the  original  deal  must  be  protected, 
and " 

158 


When  Greek  Meets  Greek 

"Here,  here — hold  on,"  interrupted  the  bank 
president;  "you're  hitting  it  up  a  little  bit  too 
fast  for  me,  Mr.  Smith.  Before  we  get  down  to 
any  talk  of  buying  and  selling,  suppose  you  tell 
me  something  about  yourself  and  your  new  com- 
pany. Who  are  you  ?  and  whereabouts  do  you 
hold  forth  when  you  are  at  home  ?" 

Smith  laughed  easily.  "If  we  were  trying  to 
borrow  money  of  you,  we  might  have  to  go  into 
preliminaries  and  particulars,  Mr.  Kinzie.  As 
it  is,  I'm  sure  you  are  not  going  to  press  for  the 
answers  to  these  very  natural  questions  of  yours. 
Further  than  that,  we  shall  have  to  ask  you  to 
hold  anything  that  may  be  said  here  in  strict 
confidence — as  between  a  banker  and  his  customer. 
We  are  not  alone  in  the  fight  for  the  water-rights 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  as  you  know,  and 
until  we  are  safely  fortified  we  shall  have  to  be 
prudently  cautious.  But  that  is  another  matter. 
What  we  want  to  know  now  is  this:  will  you  let 
us  protect  you  by  taking  your  Timanyoni  Ditch 
stock  at  par  ?  That's  the  principal  question  at 
issue  just  now." 

Kinzie  met  the  issue  fairly.  "I  don't  know  you 
yet,  Mr.  Smith;  but  I  do  know  Colonel  Baldwin, 
here,  and  I  guess  I'll  take  a  chance  on  things  as 
they  stand.     I'll  keep  my  stock." 

159 


The  Real  Man 

The  new  secretary's  smile  was  rather  patroniz- 
ing than  grateful. 

"As  you  please,  Mr.  Kinzie,  of  course,"  he  said 
smoothly.  "But  I'm  going  to  tell  you  frankly 
that  you'll  keep  it  at  your  own  risk.  I  am  not 
sure  what  plan  will  be  adopted,  but  I  assume  it 
will  be  amortization  and  a  retirement  of  the  stock 
of  the  original  company.  All  that  we  need  to 
enable  us  to  bring  this  about  is  the  voting  control 
of  the  old  stock,  and  we  already  have  that,  as 
you  know." 

The  banker  pursed  his  lips  until  the  stubbly 
gray  mustache  stood  out  stiffly.  Then  he  cut 
straight  to  the  heart  of  the  matter. 

"You  mean  that  there  will  be  a  majority  pool 
of  the  old  stock,  and  that  the  pool  will  ignore 
those  stockholders  who  don't  come  in?" 

"Something  like  that,"  said  Smith  pleasantly. 
And  then:  "We're  going  to  be  generously  liberal, 
Mr.  Kinzie;  we  are  giving  Colonel  Baldwin's 
friends  a  fair  chance  to  come  in  out  of  the  wet. 
Of  course,  if  they  refuse  to  come  in — if  they 
prefer  to  stay  out " 

Kinzie  was  smiling  sourly. 

"You'll  have  to  take  care  of  your  own  banker, 
won't  you,  Mr.  Smith?"  he  asked.  "Why 
don't   you  loosen  up   and  tell  me  a  little  more  ? 

1 60 


When  Greek  Meets  Greek 

What  have  you  fellows  got  up  your  sleeve,  any- 
way?" 

At  this,  the  new  financial  manager  slacked  off 
on  the  hawser  of  secrecy  a  little — just  a  little. 

"Mr.  Kinzie,  we've  got  the  biggest  thing,  and 
the  surest,  that  ever  came  to  Timanyoni  Park; 
not  in  futures,  mind  you,  but  in  facts  already  as 
good  as  accomplished.  If  it  were  necessary — 
as  it  isn't — I  could  go  to  New  York  to-day  and 
put  a  million  dollars  behind  our  reorganization 
plan  in  twenty-four  hours.  You'd  say  so,  your- 
self, if  I  were  at  liberty  to  explain.  But  again 
we're  dodging  and  wasting  your  time  and  ours. 
Think  the  matter  over — about  your  stock — and 
let  me  know  before  noon.  It's  rather  cruel  to 
hurry  you  so,  but  time  is  precious  with  us 
and " 

"You  sit  right  down  there,  young  man,  and 
put  a  little  of  this  precious  time  of  yours  against 
mine,"  said  Kinzie,  pointing  authoritatively  at 
the  chair  which  Smith  had  just  vacated.  "You 
mustn't  go  off  at  half-cock,  that  way.  You'll 
need  a  bank  here  to  do  business  with,  won't  you  ?" 

Smith  did  not  sit  down.  Instead,  he  smiled 
genially  and  fired  his  final  shot. 

"No,  Mr.  Kinzie;  we  shan't  need  a  local 
bank — not  as  a  matter  of  absolute  necessity.     In 

161 


The  Real  Man 

fact,  on  some  accounts,  I  don't  know  but  that 
it  would  be  better  for  us  not  to  have  one.', 

"Sit  down,"  insisted  the  bank  president;  and 
this  time  he  would  take  no  denial.  Then  he  turned 
abruptly  upon  Baldwin,  who  had  been  playing 
his  part  of  the  silent  listener  letter-perfect. 

"Baldwin,  we  are  old  friends,  and  I'd  trust 
you  to  the  limit — on  any  proposition  that  doesn't 
ask  for  more  than  straight-from-the-shoulder 
honesty.  How  much  is  this  young  friend  of  ours 
talking  through  his  hat?" 

"Not  any,  whatever,  Dave.  He's  got  the 
goods."  Baldwin  was  wise  enough  to  limit  him- 
self carefully  as  to  quantity  in  his  reply. 

"It's  straight,  is  it  ?    No  gold-brick  business  ?" 

"So  straight  that  if  we  can't  pay  twenty  per 
cent  on  what  money  we  put  in,  I'll  throw  up  my 
three  thousand  acres  over  yonder  on  Little  Creek 
and  go  back  to  cow-punching." 

Again  the  banker  made  a  comical  bristle  brush 
of  his  cropped  mustache. 

"I  want  your  business,  Dexter;  I've  got  to 
have  it.  But  I'm  going  to  be  plain  with  you. 
You  two  are  asking  me  to  believe  that  you've 
gone  outside  and  dug  up  a  new  bunch  of  backers. 
That  may  be  all  right,  but  Timanyoni  Ditch 
has  struck  a  pretty  big  bone  that  maybe  your 

162 


When  Greek  Meets  Greek 

new  backers  know  about — and  maybe  they  don't. 
You've  had  a  lot  of  bad  luck,  so  far;  getting  your 
land  titles  cleared,  and  all  that;  and  you're  going 
to  have  more.     I've " 

It  was  Smith's  turn  again  and  he  cut  in  smartly. 

"That  is  precisely  what  I  was  driving  at.  Our 
banker  can't  run  with  the  hare  and  hunt  with 
the  hounds.  You'll  excuse  me  if  I  say  that  you 
haven't  been  altogether  fair  with  Timanyoni 
Ditch,  or  with  Colonel  Baldwin,  Mr.  Kinzie.  A 
friendly  banker  doesn't  help  sell  out  his  customer. 
You  know  that,  as  well  as  I  do.  Still,  you  did 
it." 

Kinzie  threw  up  his  hands  and  tried  to  defend 
himself.  "It  was  a  straight  business  transac- 
tion, Mr.  Smith.  As  long  as  we're  in  the  bank- 
ing business,  we  buy  and  sell  for  anybody  who 
comes  along." 

"No,  we  don't,  Mr.  Kinzie;  we  protect  our 
customers  first.  In  the  present  instance  you 
thought  your  customer  was  a  dead  one,  anyway, 
so  it  wouldn't  make  much  difference  if  you  should 
throw  another  shovelful  of  dirt  or  so  onto  the 
coffin.     Wasn't  that  the  way  of  it  ?" 

The  president  was  fairly  pushed  to  the  ropes 
and  he  showed  it. 

"Answer  me  one  question,   both  of  you,"  he 

163 


The  Real  Man 

snapped.     "Are  you  big  enough  to  fight  for  your 
own  hand  against  Stanton's  crowd?" 

"You'll  see;    and   the   sight   is   going  to  cost 
you   something/'    said    Smith,    and   the   blandest 
oil  could  have  been  no  smoother  than  his  tone. 
"Is  that  right,  Dexter?" 

"That's  the  way  it  looks  to  me,  Dave,"  said 
the  ranchman  capitalist,  who,  whatever  might 
be  his  limitations  in  the  field  of  high  finance, 
was  not  lacking  the  nerve  to  fight  unquestion- 
ing in  any  partner's  quarrel. 

The  president  of  the  Brewster  City  National 
turned  back  to  Smith. 

"What  do  you  want,  Mr.  Smith?"  he  asked, 
not  too  cordially. 

"Nothing  that  you'd  give  us,  I  guess;    a  little 

business  loyalty,  for  one  thing " 

"And  a  checking  balance  for  immediate  neces- 
sities for  another?"  suggested  the  banker. 

With  all  his  trained  astuteness— trained  in 
Kinzie's  own  school,  at  that— Smith  could  not 
be  sure  that  the  gray-faced  old  Westerner  was  not 
setting  a  final  trap  for  him,  after  all.  But  he  took 
the  risk,  saying,  with  a  decent  show  of  indif- 
ference: "Of  course,  it  would  be  more  convenient 
here  than  in  Denver  or  Chicago.  But  there  is 
no  hurry  about  that  part  of  it." 

164 


When  Greek  Meets  Greek 

The  president  took  a  slip  of  paper  from  a 
pigeonhole  and  wrote  rapidly  upon  it.  Once 
more  his  optimism  was  locking  horns  with  pru- 
dent caution.  It  was  the  optimism,  however, 
that  was  driving  the  pen.  Baldwin's  word  was 
worth  something,  and  it  might  be  disastrous  to 
let  these  two  get  away  without  anchoring  them 
solidly  to  the  Brewster  City  National. 

"Sign  this,  you  two,"  he  said.  "I  don't  know 
even  the  name  of  your  new  outfit  yet,  but  I'll 
take  a  chance  on  one  piece  of  two-name  paper, 
anyhow." 

Smith  took  up  the  slip  and  glanced  at  it.  It 
was  an  accommodation  note  for  twenty  thou- 
sand dollars.  With  the  money  fairly  in  his  hands, 
he  paused  to  drive  the  nail  of  independence 
squarely  home  before  he  would  sign. 

"We  don't  want  this  at  all,  Mr.  Kinzie,  unless 
the  bank's  good-will  comes  with  it,"  he  said 
with  becoming  gravity. 

"I'll  stand  with  you,"  was  the  brusque  re- 
joinder. "But  it's  only  fair  to  you  both  to  say 
that  you've  got  the  biggest  kind  of  a  combination 
to  buck  you — a  national  utilities  corporation  with 
the  strongest  sort  of  political  backing." 

"I  doubt  if  you  can  tell  us  anything  that  we 
don't   already  know,"   said   Smith   coolly,   as  he 

i6S 


The  Real  Man 

put  his  name  on  the  note;  and  when  Baldwin 
had  signed:  "Let  this  go  to  the  credit  of  Timan- 
yoni  Ditch,  if  you  please,  Mr.  Kinzie,  and  we'll 
transfer  it  later.  It's  quite  possible  that  we 
shan't  need  it,  but  we  are  willing  to  help  out  a 
little  on  your  discount  profits,  anyway.  Further 
along,  when  things  shape  themselves  up  a  bit 
more  definitely,  you  shall  know  all  there  is  to 
know,  and  we'll  give  you  just  as  good  a  chance 
to  make  money  as  you'll  give  us." 

When  they  were  safely  out  of  the  bank  and 
half  a  square  away  from  it,  Dexter  Baldwin 
pushed  his  hat  back  and  mopped  his  forehead. 
"They  say  a  man  can't  sweat  at  this  altitude,'' 
he  remarked.  "I'm  here  to  tell  you,  Smith,  that 
I've  lost  ten  pounds  in  the  last  ten  minutes. 
Where  in  the  name  of  the  jumping  Jehoshaphat 
did  you  get  your  nerve,  boy  ?  You  stand  to  lose 
an  even  hundred-and-fifty-dollar  bill  on  this  deal; 
don't  you  know  that?" 

"How  so?"  asked  the  plunger. 

"I'd  have  bet  you  that  much  against  the  old 
campaign  hat  you're  wearing  that  you  couldn't 
'touch'  Dave  Kinzie  for  twenty  dollars — let  alone 
twenty  thousand — in  a  month  of  Sundays  !  You 
made  him  believe  we'd  got  outside  backing  from 
somewhere." 

166 


When  Greek  Meets  Greek 

"I  didn't  say  anything  like  that,  did  I  ?" 

"No;  but  you  opened  the  door  and  he  walked 
in. 

"That's  all  right:  I'm  not  responsible  for  Mr. 
Kinzie's  imagination.  We  were  obliged  to  have 
a  little  advertising  capital;  we  couldn't  turn  a 
wheel  without  it.  Now  that  we  have  it,  we'll 
get  busy.  We've  got  to  furnish  a  new  suite  of 
offices,  install  a  bigger  office  force,  incorporate 
Timanyoni  High  Line,  and  open  its  stock  sub- 
scription books,  all  practically  while  the  band 
plays.  Time  is  the  one  thing  we  can't  waste. 
Put  me  in  touch  with  a  good  business  lawyer  and 
I'll  start  the  legal  machinery.  Then  you  can  get 
into  your  car  and  go  around  and  interview  your 
crowd,  man  by  man.  I  want  to  know  exactly 
where  we  stand  with  the  old  stockholders  before 
we  make  any  move  in  public.    Can  you  do  that  ?" 

Baldwin  lifted  his  hat  and  shoved  his  fingers 
through  his  hair. 

"I  reckon  I  can;  there  are  only  sixty  or  seventy 
of  'em.  And  Bob  Stillings  is  your  lawyer.  Come 
around  the  corner  and  I'll  introduce  you." 


167 


XII 

The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

FOR  a  full  fortnight  after  the  preliminary  visit 
to  the  Brewster  City  National  Bank,  Smith 
was  easily  the  busiest  man  in  Timanyoni  County. 
Establishing  himself  in  the  Hophra  House,  and 
discarding  the  working  khaki  only  because  he 
was  shrewd  enough  to  dress  the  new  part  be- 
comingly, he  flung  himself  into  what  Colonel 
Baldwin  called  the  "miracle-working"  campaign 
with  a  zest  that  knew  no  flagging  moment. 

Within  the  fourteen-day  period  new  town  ofHces 
were  occupied  on  the  second  floor  of  the  Brewster 
City  National  Building;  Stillings,  most  efficient 
of  corporation  counsels,  had  secured  the  new 
charter;  and  the  stock-books  of  Timanyoni  High 
Line  had  been  opened,  with  the  Brewster  City 
National  named  as  the  company's  depository 
and  official  fiduciary  agent. 

At  the  dam  the  building  activities  had  been 
generously  doubled.  An  electric-light  plant  had 
been  installed,  and  Williams  was  working  day 
and  night  shifts  both  in  the  quarries  and  on  the 

168 


The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

forms.  Past  this,  the  new  financial  manager, 
himself  broadening  rapidly  as  his  field  broadened, 
was  branching  out  in  other  directions.  After  a 
brief  conference  with  a  few  of  his  principal  stock- 
holders he  had  instructed  Stillings  to  include  the 
words  "Power  and  Light"  in  the  cataloguing  of 
the  new  company's  possible  and  probable  charter 
activities,  and  by  the  end  of  the  fortnight  the 
foundations  of  a  power-house  were  going  in  below 
the  dam,  and  negotiations  were  already  on  foot 
with  the  Brewster  city  council  looking  toward  the 
sale  of  electric  current  to  the  city  for  lighting 
and  other  purposes. 

Notwithstanding  all  the  demands  made  upon 
him  as  the  chief  energizer  in  the  working  field, 
Smith  had  made  the  planting  of  his  financial 
anchor  securely  to  windward  his  first  care.  Fur- 
nished with  a  selected  list  by  Colonel  Baldwin,  he 
had  made  a  thorough  canvas  of  possible  investors, 
and  by  the  time  the  new  stock  was  printed  and 
ready  for  delivery  through  Kinzie's  bank,  an  iron- 
clad pool  of  the  majority  of  the  original  Timanyoni 
Ditch  stock  had  been  organized,  and  Smith  had 
sold  to  Maxwell,  Starbuck,  and  other  local  capi- 
talists a  sufficient  amount  of  the  new  treasury 
stock  to  give  him  a  fighting  chance;  this,  with  a 
promise  of  more  if  it  should  be  needed. 

169 


The  Real  Man 

The  stock-selling  campaign  was  a  triumph,  and 
though  he  did  not  recognize  it  as  such,  it  marked 
the  longest  step  yet  taken  in  the  march  of  the 
metamorphosis.  As  the  cashier  in  Dunham's 
bank  Smith  had  been  merely  a  high-grade  clerk. 
There  had  been  no  occasion  for  the  development 
of  the  precious  quality  of  initiative,  and  he  had 
hardly  known  the  meaning  of  the  word.  But  now 
there  seemed  to  be  no  limit  to  the  new  powers 
of  accomplishment.  Men  met  him  upon  his  own 
ground,  and  a  lilting  sense  of  triumph  gave  him 
renewed  daring  when  he  found  that  he  could  ac- 
tually inspire  them  with  some  portion  of  his  own 
confidence  and  enthusiasm. 

But  in  all  this  there  had  been  no  miracle,  one 
would  say;  nothing  but  enterprise  and  shrewd 
business  acumen  and  lightning-like  speed  in  bring- 
ing things  to  pass.  If  there  were  a  miracle,  it  lay 
in  this:  that  not  to  Maxwell  or  to  any  of  the  new 
investors  had  Smith  revealed  the  full  dimensions 
of  the  prize  for  which  Timanyoni  High  Line  was 
entering  the  race.  Colonel  Baldwin  and  one 
William  Starbuck,  Maxwell's  brother-in-law,  by 
courtesy,  and  his  partner  in  the  Little  Alice  mine, 
alone  knew  the  wheel  within  the  wheel;  how  the 
great  Eastern  utility  corporation  represented  by 
Stanton  had  spent  a  million  or  more  in  the  ac- 

170 


The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

quisition  of  the  Escalante  Grant,  which  would  be 
practically  worthless  as  agricultural  land  with- 
out the  water  which  could  be  obtained  only  by 
means  of  the  Timanyoni  dam  and  canal  system. 

With  all  these  strenuous  stirrings  in  the  busi- 
ness field,  it  may  say  itself  that  Smith  found 
little  time  for  social  indulgences  during  the 
crowded  fortnight.  Day  after  day  the  colonel 
begged  him  to  take  a  night  off  at  the  ranch,  and 
it  was  even  more  difficult  to  refuse  the  proffered 
hospitality  at  the  week-end.  But  Smith  did 
refuse  it. 

With  the  new  life  and  the  larger  ambition  had 
come  a  sturdy  resolve  to  hold  himself  aloof  from 
entanglements  of  every  sort.  That  Corona  Bald- 
win was  going  to  prove  an  entanglement  he  was 
wise  enough  to  foresee  from  the  moment  in  which 
he  had  identified  her  with  the  vitalizing  young 
woman  whose  glove  he  had  carried  off.  In  fact, 
she  was  already  associated  in  his  thoughts  with 
every  step  in  the  business  battle.  Was  he  not 
taking  a  very  temerarious  risk  of  discovery  and 
arrest  merely  for  the  sake  of  proving  to  her 
that  her  "hopeless  case"  of  the  lawn-party  could 
confute  her  mocking  little  theories  about  men  and 
types  without  half  trying  ? 

It  was  not   until   after  Miss   Corona — driving 

171 


The  Real  Man 

to  town  with  her  father,  as  she  frequently  did — 
had  thrice  visited  the  new  offices  that  Smith 
began  to  congratulate  himself,  rather  bitterly, 
to  be  sure,  upon  his  wisdom  in  staying  away 
from  Hillcrest.  For  one  thing,  he  was  learning 
that  Corona  Baldwin  was  an  exceedingly  charm- 
ing young  woman  of  many  moods  and  tenses, 
and  that  in  some  of  the  moods,  and  in  practically 
all  of  the  tenses,  she  was  able  to  make  him  see 
rose-colored.  When  she  was  not  with  him,  he 
had  no  difficulty  in  assuring  himself  that  the 
rose-colored  point  of  view  was  entirely  out  of  the 
question  for  a  man  in  daily  peril  of  meeting 
the  sheriff.  But  when  she  was  present,  calm 
sanity  had  a  way  of  losing  its  grip,  and  the  rose- 
colored  possibilities  reasserted  themselves  with 
intoxicating  accompaniments. 

Miss  Corona's  fourth  visit  to  the  handsome 
suite  of  offices  over  the  Brewster  City  National 
chanced  to  fall  upon  a  Saturday.  Her  father, 
president  of  the  new  company,  as  he  had  been 
of  the  old,  had  a  private  office  of  his  own,  but 
Miss  Corona  soon  drifted  out  to  the  railed-off 
end  of  the  larger  room,  where  the  financial  secre- 
tary had  his  desk. 

"Colonel-daddy  tells  me  that  you  are  coming 
out  to  Hillcrest  for  the  week-end,"  was  the  way 

172 


The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

in  which  she  interrupted  the  financial  secretary's 
brow-knittings  over  a  new  material  contract.  "I 
have  just  wagered  him  a  nice  fat  little  round  iron 
dollar  of  my  allowance  that  you  won't.  How 
about  it  ?" 

Smith  looked  up  with  his  best-natured  grin. 

"You  win,"  he  said  shortly. 

"Thank  you,''  she  laughed.  "In  a  minute  or 
so  I'll  go  back  to  the  president's  office  and  col- 
lect." Then:  "One  dinner,  lodging,  and  break- 
fast of  us  was  about  all  you  could  stand,  wasn't 
it  ?    I  thought  maybe  it  would  be  that  way." 

"What  made  you  think  so  ?" 

"You  should  never  ask  a  woman  why;  it's  a 
frightfully  unsafe  thing  to  do." 

"I  know,"  he  mocked.  "There  have  been 
whole  books  written  about  the  lack  of  logic  on 
your  side  ot  the  sex  fence." 

She  had  seated  herself  in  the  chair  reserved 
for  inquiring  investors.  There  was  a  little  in- 
terval of  glove-smoothing  silence,  and  then,  like 
a  flash  out  of  a  clear  sky,  she  smiled  across  the 
desk-end  at  him  and  said: 

"Will  you  forgive  me  if  I  ask  you  a  perfectly 
ridiculous  question?" 

"Certainly.  Other  people  ask  them  every 
day." 

173 


The  Real  Man 

"Is — is  your  name  really  and  truly  John 
Smith?" 

"Why  should  you  doubt  it?" 

It  was  just  here  that  Smith  was  given  to  see 
another  one  of  Miss  Corona's  many  moods — or 
tenses — and  it  was  a  new  one  to  him.  She  was 
visibly  embarrassed. 

"I — I  don't  want  to  tell  you,"  she  stammered. 

"All  right;  you  needn't." 

"If  you're  going  to  take  it  that  easy,  I  will 
tell  you,"  she  retorted.  "Mr.  Williams  thought 
your  name  was  an  alias;  and  I'm  not  sure  that 
he  doesn't  still  think  so." 

"The  Smiths  never  have  to  have  aliases.  It's 
like  John  Doe  or  Richard  Roe,  you  know." 

"Haven't  you  any  middle  name  ?" 

"I  have  a  middle  initial.  It  is  'M.'"  He  was 
looking  her  fairly  in  the  eyes  as  he  said  it,  and 
the  light  in  the  new  offices  was  excellent.  Thanks 
to  her  horseback  riding,  Miss  Corona's  small 
oval  face  had  a  touch  of  healthy  outdoor  tan; 
but  under  the  tan  there  came,  for  just  a  flitting 
instant,  a  flush  of  deeper  color,  and  at  the  back 
of  the  gray  eyes  there  was  something  that  Smith 
had  never  seen  there  before. 

"It's — it's  just  an  initial?"  she  queried. 

"Yes;    it's   just    an    initial,    and    I    don't    use 

174 


The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

it  ordinarily.  I'm  not  ashamed  of  the  plain 
'John.'" 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should  be,"  she  com- 
mented, half  absently,  he  thought.  And  then: 
"How  many  'John  M.  Smiths'  do  you  suppose 
there  are  in  the  United  States  ?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know;    a  million  or  so,  I  guess." 

"I  should  think  you  would  be  rather  glad  of 
that,"  she  *told  him.  But  when  he  tried  to  make 
her  say  why  he  should  be  glad,  she  talked  point- 
edly of  other  things  and  presently  went  back  to 
her  father's  office. 

It  was  not  until  after  she  had  gone  out  with  her 
father,  and  he  had  made  her  wager  good  by  stead- 
fastly refusing  to  spend  the  week-end  at  the  ranch, 
that  Smith  began  to  put  two  and  two  together, 
erroneously,  as  it  happened,  though  he  could  not 
know  this.  Mrs.  Baldwin's  home  town  in  his 
native  State  was  the  little  place  that  her  daughter 
had  visited  and  where  the  daughter  had  had  a 
lawn-party  given  in  her  honor.  Was  it  not  more 
than  probable  that  the  colonel's  wife  was  still 
keeping  up  some  sort  of  a  correspondence  with 
her  home  people  and  that  through  this,  or  some 
mention  in  a  local  paper,  Corona  had  got  hold  of 
the  devastating  story  of  one  J.  Montague  Smith  ? 

There  were  fine  little  headings  of  perspiration 

175 


The  Real  Man 

standing  on  the  fugitive's  forehead  when  the 
small  sum  in  addition  had  progressed  thus  far. 
But  if  he  had  only  known  it,  there  was  no  need, 
as  yet,  for  the  sweat  of  apprehension.  Like  some 
other  young  women,  Miss  Baldwin  suffered  from 
spasmodic  attacks  of  the  diary-keeping  malady; 
she  had  been  keeping  one  at  the  time  of  her  return 
from  school,  and  the  lawn-party  in  the  little  town 
in  the  Middle  West  had  its  due  entry. 

In  a  moment  of  idle  curiosity  on  the  Saturday 
forenoon,  she  had  looked  into  the  year-old  diary 
to  find  the  forgotten  name  of  the  man  of  whom 
Smith  was  still  persistently  reminding  her.  It 
was  there  in  all  its  glory:  "J.  Montague  Smith." 
Could  it  be  possible  ? — but,  no;  John  Smith,  her 
father's  John  Smith,  had  come  to  the  construc- 
tion camp  as  a  hobo,  and  that  was  not  possible, 
not  even  thinkable,  of  the  man  she  had  met. 
None  the  less,  it  was  a  second  attack  of  the  idle 
curiosity  that  had  moved  her  to  go  to  town 
with  her  father  on  the  Saturday  afternoon  of 
questionings. 

After  the  other  members  of  the  office  force  had 
taken  their  departure,  Smith  still  sat  at  his  desk 
striving  to  bring  himself  back  with  some  degree 
of  clear-headedness  to  the  pressing  demands  of 
his  job.     Just  as  he  was  about  to  give  it  up  and 

176 


The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

go  across  to  the  Hophra  House  for  his  dinner, 
William  Starbuck  drifted  in  to  open  the  railing 
gate  and  to  come  and  plant  himself  in  the  chair 
of  privilege  at  Smith's  desk-end. 

"Well,  son;  you've  got  the  animals  stirred  up 
good  and  plenty,  at  last,"  he  said,  when  he  had 
found  the  "makings"  and  was  deftly  rolling  a 
cigarette — his  one  overlapping  habit  reaching  back 
to  his  range-riding  youth.  "Dick  Maxwell  got 
a  wire  to-day  from  his  kiddie's  grandpaw — and 
my  own  respected  daddy-in-law — Mr.  Hiram  Fair- 
bairn;   you  know  him — the  lumber  king." 

"I'm  listening,"  said  Smith. 

"Dick's  wire  was  an  order;  instructions  from 
headquarters  to  keep  hands  off  of  your  new  com- 
pany and  to  work  strictly  in  cahoots — 'harmony' 
was  the  word  he  used — with  Crawford  Stanton. 
How  does  that  fit  you  ?" 

The  financial  secretary's  smile  was  the  self- 
congratulatory  face-wrinkling  of  the  quarry  fore- 
man who  has  seen  his  tackle  hitch  hold  to  land 
the  big  stone  safely  at  the  top  of  the  pit. 

"What  is  Maxwell  going  to  do  about  it?"  he 
asked. 

"Dick  is  all  wool  and  a  yard  wide;  and  what 
he  signs  his  name  to  is  what  he  is  going  to  stand 
by.     You  won't  lose  him,  but  the  wire  shows  us 

177 


The  Real  Man 

just  about  where  we're  aiming  to  put  our  leg  into 
the  gopher-hole  and  break  it,  doesn't  it?" 

"I'm  not  borrowing  any  trouble.  Mr.  Fair- 
bairn  and  his  colleagues  are  just  a  few  minutes 
too  late,  Starbuck.  We've  got  our  footing — in- 
side of  the  corral." 

The  ex-cow-puncher,  who  was  now  well  up  on 
the  middle  rounds  of  fortune's  ladder,  shook  his 
head  doubtfully. 

"Don't  you  make  any  brash  breaks,  John. 
Mr.  Hiram  Fairbairn  and  his  crowd  can  swing 
twenty  millions  to  your  one  little  old  dollar  and 
a  half,  and  they're  not  going  to  leave  any  of 
the  pebbles  unturned  when  it  comes  to  saving 
their  investment  in  the  Escalante.  I  don't  care 
specially  for  my  own  ante — Stella  and  I  will 
manage  to  get  a  bite  to  eat,  anyway.  But  for 
your  own  sake  and  Colonel  Dexter's,  you  don't 
want  to  let  the  grass  grow  under  your  feet;  not 
any  whatsoever.  You  go  ahead  and  get  that 
dam  finished,  pronto,  if  you  have  to  put  a  thou- 
sand men  on  it  and  work  'em  Sundays  as  well  as 
nights.  That's  all;  I  just  thought  I'd  drop  in 
and  tell  you." 

Smith  went  to  his  rooms  in  the  hotel  a  few 
minutes  later  to  change  for  dinner.  Having  been 
restocking    his    wardrobe    to   better   fit   his   new 

178 


The  Rocket  and  the  Stick 

state  and  standing  as  the  financial  head  of  Timan- 
yoni  High  Line,  he  found  the  linen  drawer  in  his 
dressing-case  overflowing.  Opening  another,  he 
began  to  arrange  the  overflow  methodically.  The 
empty  drawer  was  lined  with  a  newspaper,  and 
he  took  the  paper  out  to  fold  it  afresh.  In  the 
act  he  saw  that  it  was  a  copy  of  the  Chicago  Tribune 
some  weeks  old.  As  he  was  replacing  it  in  the 
drawer  bottom,  a  single  head-line  on  the  upturned 
page  sprang  at  him  like  a  thing  living  and  venom- 
ous. He  bent  lower  and  read  the  underrunning 
paragraph  with  a  dull  rage  mounting  to  his  eyes 
and  serving  for  the  moment  to  make  the  gray  of 
the  printed  lines  turn  red. 

Lawrenceville,  May  19. — The  grand 
jury  has  found  a  true  bill  against  Mon- 
tague Smith,  the  absconding  cashier  of 
the  Lawrenceville  Bank  and  Trust, 
charged  with  embezzling  the  bank's 
funds.  The  crime  would  have  been  mere- 
ly a  breach  of  trust  and  not  actionable 
but  for  the  fact  that  Smith,  by  owning 
stock  in  the  bankrupt  Westfall  industries 
lately  taken  over  by  the  Richlander  Com- 
pany, had  so  made  himself  amenable  to 
the  law.  Smith  disappeared  on  the  night 
of  the  14th  and  is  still  at  large.  He  is 
also  wanted  on  another  criminal  count. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  he  brutally 
assaulted  President  Dunham  on  the 
night  of  his  disappearance.  The  reward 
of  $1,000  for  his  apprehension  and  arrest 
has  been  increased  to  $2,000  by  the  bank 
directors. 


179 


XIII 

The  Narrow  World 

AT  the  fresh  newspaper  reminder  that  his  sud- 
l\  den  bound  upward  from  the  laboring  ranks 
to  the  executive  headship  of  the  irrigation  project 
had  merely  made  him  a  more  conspicuous  target 
for  the  man-hunters,  Smith  scanted  himself  of 
sleep  and  redoubled  his  efforts  to  put  the  new 
company  on  a  sound  and  permanent  footing.  In 
the  nature  of  things  he  felt  that  his  own  shrift 
must  necessarily  be  short.  Though  his  own  im- 
mediate public  was  comparatively  small,  the  more 
or  less  dramatic  coup  in  Timanyoni  High  Line 
had  advertised  him  thoroughly.  He  was  rapidly 
coming  to  be  the  best-known  man  in  Brewster, 
and  he  cherished  no  illusions  about  lost  identities, 
or  the  ability  to  lose  them,  in  a  land  where  time 
and  space  have  been  wired  and  railroaded  pretty 
well  out  of  existence. 

Moreover,  Dunham's  bank  was  a  member  of  a 
protective  association,  and  Smith  knew  how  wide 
a  net  could  be  spread  and  drawn  when  any  ab- 

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The  Narrow  World 

sconding  employee  was  really  wanted.  The 
doubling  of  the  reward  gave  notice  that  Dunham 
was  vindictively  in  earnest,  and  in  that  event 
it  would  be  only  a  question  of  time  until  some  one 
of  the  hired  man-hunters  would  hit  upon  the 
successful  clew. 

It  was  needful  that  he  should  work  while  the 
day  was  his  in  which  to  work;  and  he  did  work. 
There  was  still  much  to  be  done.  Williams  was 
having  a  threat  of  labor  troubles  at  the  dam,  and 
Stillings  had  unearthed  another  possible  flaw  in 
the  land  titles  dating  back  to  the  promotion  of  a 
certain  railroad  which  had  never  gotten  far  be- 
yond the  paper  stage  and  the  acquiring  of  some 
of  its  rights  of  way. 

Smith  flung  himself  masterfully  at  the  new 
difficulties  as  they  arose,  and  earned  his  meed 
of  praise  from  the  men  for  whom  he  overcame 
them.  But  under  the  surface  current  of  the 
hurrying  business  tide  a  bitter  undertow  was 
beginning  to  set  in.  In  every  characterizing 
change  it  is  inevitable  that  there  should  be  some 
loss  in  the  scrapping  of  the  old  to  make  way  for 
the  new.  Smith  saw  himself  in  two  aspects.  In 
one  he  stood  as  a  man  among  men,  with  a  promise 
of  winning  honors  and  wealth;  with  the  still  more 
ecstatic  promise  of  being  able,  perhaps,  to  win 

181 


The  Real  Man 

the  love  of  the  vivifying  young  woman  who  had 
once  touched  the  spring  of  sentiment  in  him — 
and  was  touching  it  again.  In  the  other  he  was  a 
fugitive  and  an  outlaw,  waiting  only  for  some 
spreader  of  the  net  to  come  and  tap  him  on  the 
shoulder. 

He  took  his  first  decided  backward  step  on  the 
night  when  he  went  into  a  hardware  store  and 
bought  a  pistol.  The  free,  fair-fighting  spirit 
which  had  sent  him  barehanded  against  the 
three  claim-jumpers  was  gone  and  in  its  place 
there  was  a  fell  determination,  undefined  as  yet, 
but  keying  itself  to  the  barbaric  pitch.  With 
the  weapon  in  his  pocket  he  could  look  back  over 
the  transforming  interspaces  with  a  steadier  eye. 
Truly,  he  had  come  far  since  that  night  in  the 
Lawrenceville  Bank  when  a  single  fierce  gust  of 
passion  had  plucked  him  away  from  all  the 
familiar  landmarks. 

And  as  for  Corona  Baldwin,  there  were  days 
in  which  he  set  his  jaw  and  told  himself  that 
nothing,  even  if  it  were  the  shedding  of  blood, 
should  stand  in  the  way  of  winning  her.  It  was 
his  right  as  a  man;  he  had  done  nothing  to  make 
himself  the  outlaw  that  the  Lawrenceville  in- 
dictment declared  him  to  be;  therefore  he  would 
fight  for  his  chance — slay  for  it,  if  need  be.     But 

182 


The  Narrow  World 

there  were  other  days  when  the  saner  thought 
prevailed  and  he  saw  the  pit  of  selfishness  into 
which  the  new  barbarisms  were  plunging  him. 
The  Baldwins  were  his  friends,  and  they  were 
accepting  him  in  the  full  light  of  the  inference 
that  he  was  a  man  under  a  cloud.  Could  he  take 
a  further  advantage  of  their  generosity  by  in- 
volving them  still  more  intimately  in  his  own 
particular  entanglement  ?  He  assured  himself 
that  he  couldn't  and  wouldn't;  that  though  he 
might,  indeed,  commit  a  murder  when  the  pinch 
came,  he  was  still  man  enough  to  stay  away  from 
Hillcrest. 

He  was  holding  this  latter  view  grimly  on  an 
evening  when  he  had  worked  himself  haggard  over 
the  draft  of  the  city  ordinance  which  was  to 
authorize  the  contract  with  the  High  Line  Com- 
pany for  lights  and  power.  It  had  been  a  day 
of  nagging  distractions.  A  rumor  had  been  set 
afoot — by  Stanton,  as  Smith  made  no  doubt — 
hinting  that  the  new  dam  would  be  unsafe  when 
it  should  be  completed;  that  its  breaking,  with 
the  reservoir  behind  it,  would  carry  death  and 
destruction  to  the  lowlands  and  even  to  the  city. 
Timid  stockholders,  seeing  colossal  damage  suits 
in  the  bare  possibility,  had  taken  the  alarm,  and 
Smith  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  day  in 

183 


The  Real  Man 

trying  to  calm  their  fears.  For  this  cause,  and 
some  others,  he  was  on  the  ragged  edge  when 
Baldwin  dropped  in  on  his  way  home  from  the 
dam  and  protested. 

"Look  here,  John;  you're  overdoing  this  thing 
world  without  end  !  It's  six  o'clock,  man ! — 
quitting-time.  Another  week  of  this  grinding 
and  you'll  be  hunting  a  nice,  quiet  cot  in  the 
railroad  hospital,  and  then  where'll  we  be  ?  You 
break  it  off  short,  right  now,  and  go  home  with 
me  and  get  your  dinner  and  a  good  night's  rest. 
No,  by  Jupiter,  I'm  not  going  to  let  you  off,  this 
trip.  Get  your  coat  and  hat  and  come  along,  or 
I'll  rope  you  down  and  hog-tie  you." 

For  once  in  a  way,  Smith  found  that  there 
was  no  fight  left  in  him,  and  he  yielded,  telling 
himself  that  another  acceptance  of  the  Baldwin 
hospitality,  more  or  less,  could  make  no  difference. 
But  no  sooner  was  the  colonel's  gray  roadster 
headed  for  the  bridge  across  the  Timanyoni  than 
the  exhilarating  reaction  set  in.  In  a  twinkling 
the  business  cares,  and  the  deeper  worries  as  well, 
fled  away,  and  in  their  place  heart-hunger  was 
loosed.  If  Corona  would  give  him  this  one  eve- 
ning, rest  him,  revive  him,  share  with  him  some 
small  portion  of  her  marvellous  vitality.   .   .  . 

He  did  not  overrate  the  stimulative  effect  of 
184 


The  Narrow  World 

her  presence;  of  the  mere  fact  of  propinquity. 
When  the  roadster  drew  up  at  the  portico  of  the 
transplanted  Missouri  plantation  mansion  she 
was  waiting  on  the  steps.  It  was  dinner-time, 
and  she  had  on  an  evening  gown  of  some  shim- 
mering, leafy  stuff  that  made  her  look  more  like 
a  wood-nymph  than  he  had  ever  supposed  any 
mere  mortal  woman  could  look.  When  she  stood 
on  tiptoes  for  her  father's  kiss,  Smith  knew  the 
name  of  his  malady,  however  much  he  may  have 
blinked  it  before;  knew  its  name,  and  knew  that 
it  would  have  to  be  reckoned  with,  whatever 
fresh  involvements  might  be  lying  in  wait  for 
him  behind  the  curtain  of  the  days  to  come. 

After  dinner,  a  meal  at  which  he  ate  little  and 
was  well  content  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  his  soul 
by  the  road  of  the  eye,  Smith  went  out  to  the 
portico  to  smoke.  The  most  gorgeous  of  moun- 
tain sunsets  was  painting  itself  upon  the  sky  over 
the  western  Timanyonis,  but  he  had  no  eyes  for 
natural  grandeurs,  and  no  ears  for  any  sound 
save  one — the  footstep  he  was  listening  for.  It 
came  at  length,  and  he  tried  to  look  as  tired  as 
he  had  been  when  the  colonel  made  him  close 
his  desk  and  leave  the  office;  tried  and  apparently 
succeeded. 

"You  poor,  broken-down  Samson,  carrying  all 

185 


The  Real  Man 

the  brazen  gates  of  the  money-Philistines  on  your 
shoulders  !  You  had  to  come  to  us  at  last,  didn't 
you  ?  Let  me  be  your  Delilah  and  fix  that  chair 
so  that  it  will  be  really  comfortable."  She  said 
it  only  half  mockingly,  and  he  forgave  the  sar- 
casm when  she  arranged  some  of  the  hammock 
pillows  in  the  easiest  of  the  porch  chairs  and 
made  him  bury  himself  luxuriously  in  them. 

Still  holding  the  idea,  brought  over  from  that 
afternoon  of  the  name  questioning,  that  she  had 
in  some  way  discovered  his  true  identity,  Smith 
was  watching  narrowly  for  danger-signals  when 
he  thanked  her  and  said: 

"You  say  it  just  as  it  is.  I  had  to  come.  But 
you  could  never  be  anybody's  Delilah,  could  you  ? 
She  was  a  betrayer,  if  you  recollect." 

He  made  the  suggestion  purposely,  but  it  was 
wholly  ignored,  and  there  was  no  guile  in  the 
slate-gray  eyes. 

"You  mean  that  you  didn't  want  to  come?" 

"No;  not  that.  I  have  wanted  to  come  every 
time 'your  father  has  asked  me.  But  there 
are  reasons — good  reasons — why  I  shouldn't  be 
here." 

If  she  knew  any  of  the  reasons  she  made  no 
sign.  She  was  sitting  in  the  hammock  and  touch- 
ing one  slippered   toe  to  the  flagstones  for  the 

1 86 


The  Narrow  World 

swinging  push.  From  Smith's  point  of  view  she 
had  for  a  background  the  gorgeous  sunset,  but  he 
could  not  see  the  more  distant  glories. 

"We  owe  you  much,  and  we  are  going  to  owe 
you  more,"  she  said.  "You  mustn't  think  that 
we  don't  appreciate  you  at  your  full  value. 
Colonel-daddy  thinks  you  are  the  most  wonder- 
ful somebody  that  ever  lived,  and  so  do  a  lot  of 
the  others." 

"And  you?"  he  couldn't  resist  saying. 

"I'm  just  plain  ashamed — for  the  way  I  treated 
you  when  you  were  here  before.  I've  been  eating 
humble-pie  ever  since." 

Smith  breathed  freer.  Nobody  but  a  most 
consummate  actress  could  have  simulated  her 
frank  sincerity.  He  had  jumped  too  quickly  to 
the  small  sum-in-addition  conclusion.  She  did 
not  know  the  story  of  the  absconding  bank 
cashier. 

"I  don't  know  why  you  should  feel  that  way," 
he  said,  eager,  now,  to  run  where  he  had  before 
been  afraid  to  walk. 

"/  do.  And  I  believe  you  wanted  to  shame 
me.  I  believe  you  gave  up  your  place  at  the  dam 
and  took  hold  with  daddy  more  to  show  me  what 
an  inconsequent  little  idiot  I  was  than  for  any 
other  reason.     Didn't  you,  really?" 

i87 


The  Real  Man 

He  laughed  in  quiet  ecstasy  at  this  newest 
and  most  adorable  of  the  moods. 

"Honest  confession  is  good  for  the  soul:  I 
did,"  he  boasted.  "Now  beat  that  for  frank- 
ness, if  you  can." 

"I  can't,"  she  admitted,  laughing  back  at  him. 
"But  now  you've  accomplished  your  purpose,  I 
hope  you  are  not  going  to  give  up.  That  would 
be  a  little  hard  on  Colonel-daddy." 

"Oh,  no;  I'm  not  going  to  give  up — until  I 
have  to." 

"Does  that  mean  more  than  it  says?" 

"Yes,  I'm  afraid  it  does." 

She  was  silent  for  the  length  of  time  that  it 
took  the  flaming  crimson  in  the  western  sky  to 
fade  to  salmon. 

"I  know  I  haven't  earned  the  right  to  ask  you 
any  of  the  whys,"  she  said  at  the  end  of  the  little 
pause. 

"Women  like  you — only  there  are  not  any 
more  of  them,  I  think — don't  have  to  earn  things. 
The  last  time  you  were  in  the  office  you  said 
enough  to  let  me  know  that  you  and  your  father 
and  Williams — all  of  you,  in  fact — suspect  that  I 
am  out  here  under  a  cloud  of  some  sort.  It  is  true." 

"And  that  is  why  you  say  you  won't  give  up 
until  you  have  to  ?" 

188 


The  Narrow  World 

"That  is  the  reason;   yes." 

There  was  another  little  interval  of  silence  and 
then  she  said:  "I  suppose  you  couldn't  tell  me — 
or  anybody — could  you  ?" 

"I  can  tell  you  enough  so  that  you  will  under- 
stand why  I  may  not  be  permitted  to  go  on  and 
finish  what  I  have  begun  in  Timanyoni  High  Line. 
When  I  left  home  I  thought  I  was  a  murderer." 

He  would  not  look  at  her  to  see  how  she  was 
taking  it,  but  he  could  not  help  hearing  her  little 
gasp. 

"Oh!"  she  breathed;  and  then:  "You  say 
you  'thought.'    Wasn't  it  so?" 

"It  happened  not  to  be.  The  man  didn't  die. 
I  suppose  I  might  say  that  I  didn't  try  to  kill 
him;  but  that  would  hardly  be  true.  At  the 
moment,  I  didn't  care.  Have  you  ever  felt  that 
way  ? — you  know  what  I  mean,  just  utterly  blind 
and  reckless  as  to  consequences?" 

"I  have  a  horrible  temper,  if  that  covers 
it." 

"It's  something  like  that,"  he  conceded;  "only, 
up  to  the  moment  when  it  happened  I  hadn't 
known  that  I  had  any  temper.  Perhaps  I  might 
say  that  the  provocation  was  big  enough,  though 
the  law  won't  say  so." 

The  pink  flush  had  faded  out  of  the  high  western 

189 


The  Real  Man 

horizon  and  the  stars  were  coming  out  one  at  a 
time.  The  colonel  had  come  up  from  the  ranch 
bunk-house  where  the  men  slept,  and  was  smok- 
ing his  long-stemmed  corn-cob  pipe  on  the  lawn 
under  the  spreading  cottonwoods.  Peace  was  the 
key-note  of  the  perfect  summer  night,  and  even 
for  the  man  under  the  shadow  of  the  law  there 
was  a  quiet  breathing  space. 

"I  don't  believe  you  could  ever  kill  a  man  in 
cold  blood,"  said  the  young  woman  in  the  ham- 
mock. "I'm  sure  you  know  that,  yourself,  and 
it  ought  to  be  a  comfort  to  you." 

"It  might  have  been  once,  but  it  isn't  any 
more." 

"Why  not?" 

"I  suppose  it  is  because  I  left  a  good  many 
things  behind  me  when  I  ran  away — besides  the 
man  I  thought  was  dead.  In  that  other  life  I 
never  knew  what  it  meant  to  fight  for  the  things 
I  wanted;  perhaps  it  was  because  I  never  wanted 
anything  very  badly,  or  possibly  it  was  because 
the  things  I  did  want  came  too  easily." 

"They  are  not  coming  so  easily  now?" 

"No;  but  I'm  going  to  have  them  at  any  cost. 
You  will  know  what  I  mean  when  I  say  that 
nothing,  not  even  human  life,  seems  so  sacred  to 
me  as  it  used  to." 

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The  Narrow  World 

"Have  you  ever  talked  with  daddy  about  all 
these  things  ?" 

"No.  You  don't  know  men  very  well;  they 
don't  talk  about  such  things  to  one  another. 
The  average  man  tells  some  woman,  if  he  can  be 
lucky  enough  to  find  one  who  will  listen. " 

"You  haven't  told  me  all  of  it,"  she  said,  after 
another  hesitant  pause.  "You  have  carefully 
left  the  woman  out  of  it.    Was  she  pretty  ?" 

Smith  buried  his  laugh  so  deep  that  not  a 
flicker  of  it  came  to  the  surface. 

"Is  that  the  open  inference  always? — that  a 
man  tries  to  kill  another  because  there  is  a  woman 
ink?" 

"I  merely  asked  you  if  she  was  pretty." 

"There  was  a  woman,"  he  answered  doggedly; 
"though  she  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  trouble. 
I  was  going  to  call  on  her  the  night  I — the  night 
the  thing  happened.  I  hope  she  isn't  still  waiting 
for  me  to  ring  the  door-bell." 

"You  haven't  told  her  where  you  are?" 

"No;  but  she's  not  losing  any  sleep  about  that. 
She  isn't  that  kind.  Indeed,  I'm  not  sure  that 
she  wouldn't  turn  the  letter  over  to  the  sheriff, 
if  I  should  write  her.  Let's  clear  this  up  before 
we  go  any  further.  It  was  generally  understood, 
in  the  home  town,  you  know,  that  we  were  to  be 

191 


The  Real  Man 

married  some  time,  though  nothing  definite  had 
ever  been  said  by  either  of  us.  There  wasn't  any 
sentiment,  you  understand;  I  was  idiotic  enough 
at  the  time  to  believe  that  there  wasn't  any  such 
thing  as  sentiment.  It  has  cost  me  about  as  much 
to  give  her  up  as  it  has  cost  her  to  give  me  up — 
and  that  is  a  little  less  than  nothing." 

Again  the  silence  came  between.  The  colonel 
was  knocking  his  pipe  bowl  against  a  tree  trunk 
and  an  interruption  was  threatening.  When  the 
low  voice  came  again  from  the  hammock  it  was 
troubled. 

"You  are  disappointing  me,  now.  You  are 
taking  it  very  lightly,  and  apparently  you  neither 
know  nor  care  very  much  how  the  woman  may  be 
taking  it.  Perhaps  there  wasn't  any  sentiment 
on  your  part." 

Smith  was  laughing  quietly.  "If  you  could 
only  know  Verda  Richlander,"  he  said.  "Imagine 
the  most  beautiful  thing  you  can  think  of,  and 
then  take  the  heart  out  of  it,  and — but,  hold  on, 
I  can  do  better  than  that,"  and  he  drew  out  his 
watch  and  handed  it  to  her  with  the  back  case 
opened. 

She  took  the  watch  and  stopped  the  hammock 
swing  to  let  the  light  from  the  nearest  window 
fall  upon  the  photograph. 

192 


The  Narrow  World 

"She  is  very  beautiful;  magnificently  beau- 
tiful," she  said,  returning  the  watch.  And  an 
instant  later:  "I  don't  see  how  you  could  say 
what  you  did  about  the  sentiment.  If  I  were  a 
man " 

The  colonel  had  mounted  the  steps  and  was 
coming  toward  them.  The  young  woman  slipped 
from  the  hammock  and  stood  up. 

"Don't  go,"  said  Smith,  feeling  as  if  he  were 
losing  an  opportunity  and  leaving  much  unsaid 
that  ought  to  be  said.  But  the  answer  was  a 
quiet  "good  night"  and  she  was  gone. 

Smith  went  back  to  town  with  the  colonel  the 
next  morning  physically  rested,  to  be  sure,  but 
in  a  frame  of  mind  bordering  again  upon  the 
sardonic.  In  the  cold  light  of  the  following  day, 
after-dinner  confidences,  even  with  the  best- 
beloved,  have  a  way  of  showing  up  all  their 
puerilities  and  inadequacies.  Two  things,  and  two 
alone,  stood  out  clearly:  one  was  that  he  was 
most  unmistakably  in  love  with  Corona  Baldwin, 
and  the  other  was  that  he  had  shown  her  the 
weakest  side  of  himself  by  appealing  like  a  callow 
boy  to  her  sympathies. 

Hence  there  was  another  high  resolve  not  to 
go  to  Hillcrest  again  until  he  could  go  as  a  free 
man;    a  resolve  which,  it  is  perhaps  needless  to 

193 


The  Real  Man 

say,  was  broken  thereafter  as  often  as  the  colonel 
asked  him  to  go.  Why,  in  the  last  resort,  Smith 
should  have  finally  chosen  another  confidant  in 
the  person  of  William  Starbuck,  the  reformed 
cow-puncher,  he  scarcely  knew.  But  it  was  to 
Starbuck  that  he  appealed  for  advice  when 
the  sentimental  situation  had  grown  fairly  des- 
perate. 

"I've  told  you  enough  so  that  you  can  under- 
stand the  vise-nip  of  it,  Billy,"  he  said  to  Star- 
buck  one  night  when  he  had  dragged  the  mine 
owner  up  to  the  bath-room  suite  in  the  Hophra 
House,  and  had  told  him  just  a  little,  enough  to 
merely  hint  at  his  condition.  "You  see  how  it 
stacks  up.  I'm  in  a  fair  way  to  come  out  of  this 
the  biggest  scoundrel  alive — the  piker  who  takes 
advantage  of  the  innocence  of  a  good  girl.  I'm 
not  the  man  she  thinks  I  am.  I  am  standing 
over  a  volcano  pit  every  minute  of  the  day.  If 
it  blows  up,  I'm  gone,  obliterated,  wiped  out." 

"Is  it  aiming  to  blow  up?"  asked  Starbuck 
sagely. 

"I  don't  know  any  more  about  that  than  you 
do.  It  is  the  kind  that  usually  does  blow  up 
sooner  or  later.  I've  prepared  for  it  as  well  as 
I  can.  What  Colonel  Baldwin  and  the  rest  of 
you  needed  was  a  financial  manager,  and  Timan- 

194 


The  Narrow  World 

yoni  High  Line  has  its  fighting  chance — which 
was  more  than  Timanyoni  Ditch  had  when  I  took 
hold.  If  I  should  drop  out  now,  you  and  Max- 
well and  the  colonel  and  Kinzie  could  go  on  and 
make  the  fight;  but  that  doesn't  help  out  in  this 
other  matter.,, 

Starbuck  smoked  in  silence  for  a  long  minute 
or  two  before  he  said:  "Is  there  another  woman 
in  it,  John?" 

"Yes;  but  not  in  the  way  you  mean.  It  never 
came  to  anything  more  than  a  decently  frank 
friendship,  though  the  whole  town  had  it  put  up 
that  it  was  all  settled  and  we  were  going  to  be 
married. " 

"Huh!  I  wonder  if  that's  what  she'd  say? 
You  say  it  never  came  to  anything  more  than  a 
friendship:  maybe  that's  all  right  from  your  side 
of  the  fence.     But  how  about  the  girl?" 

The  harassed  one's  smile  was  grimly  reminis- 
cent. 

"If  you  knew  her  you  wouldn't  ask,  Billy. 
She  is  the  modern,  up-to-date  young  woman  in 
all  that  the  term  implies.  When  she  marries  she 
will  give  little  and  ask  little,  outside  of  the  ordinary 
amenities  and  conventionalities." 

"That's  what  you  say;  and  maybe  it's  what 
you  think.    But  when  you  have  to  figure  a  woman 

195 


The  Real  Man 

into  it,  you  never  can  tell,  John.  Are  you  keep- 
ing in  touch  with  this  other  girl?" 

Smith  shook  his  head. 

"No;  I  shall  probably  never  see  her  or  hear 
from  her  again.  Not  that  it  matters  a  penny's 
worth  to  either  of  us.  And  your  guess  was  wrong 
if  you  thought  that  things  past  are  having  any 
effect  on  things  present.  Corona  Baldwin  stands 
in  a  class  by  herself." 

"She's  a  mighty  fine  little  girl,  John,"  said 
Starbuck  slowly.  "Any  one  of  a  dozen  fellows 
I  could  name  would  give  all  their  old  shoes  to 
swap  chances  with  you." 

"That  isn't  exactly  the  kind  of  advice  I'm 
needing,"  was  the  sober  rejoinder. 

"No;  but  it  was  the  kind  you  were  wanting, 
when  you  tolled  me  off  up  here,"  laughed  the 
ex-cow-puncher.  "I  know  the  symptoms.  Had 
'em  myself  for  about  two  years  so  bad  that  I 
could  wake  up  in  the  middle  of  the  night  and 
taste  'em.  Go  in  and  win.  Maybe  the  great  big 
stumbling-block  you're  worrying  about  wouldn't 
mean  anything  at  all  to  an  open-minded  young 
woman  like  Corona;   most  likely  it  wouldn't." 

"If  she  could  know  the  whole  truth — and  be- 
lieve it,"  said  Smith  musingly. 

"You  tell  her  the  truth,  and  she'll  take  care  of 
196 


The  Narrow  World 

the  believing  part  of  it,  all  right.     You  needn't 
lose  any  sleep  about  that." 

Smith  drew  a  long  breath  and  removed  his  pipe 
to  say:  "I  haven't  the  nerve,  Billy,  and  that's 
the  plain  fact.  I  have  already  told  her  a  little 
of  it.     She  knows  that  I " 

Starbuck  broke  in  with  a  laugh.  "Yes;  it's 
a  shouting  pity  about  your  nerve !  You've  been 
putting  up  such  a  blooming  scary  fight  in  this 
irrigation  business  that  we  all  know  you  haven't 
any  nerve.  If  I  had  your  job  in  that,  I'd  be  go- 
ing around  here  toting  two  guns  and  wondering  if 
I  couldn't  make  room  in  the  holster  for  another." 

Smith  shook  his  head. 

"I  was  safe  enough  so  long  as  Stanton  thought 
I  was  the  resident  manager  and  promoter  for  a 
new  bunch  of  big  money  in  the  background.  But 
he  has  had  me  shadowed  and  tracked  until  now 
I  guess  he  is  pretty  well  convinced  that  I  actually 
had  the  audacity  to  play  a  lone  hand;  and  a 
bluffing  hand,  at  that.  That  makes  a  difference, 
of  course.  Two  days  after  I  had  climbed  into  the 
saddle  here,  he  sent  a  couple  of  his  strikers  after 
me.  I  don't  know  just  what  their  orders  were, 
but  they  seemed  to  want  a  fight — and  they  got 
it.    It  was  in  Blue  Pete's  doggery,  up  at  the  camp." 

"Guns?"  queried  Starbuck. 
197 


The  Real  Man 

"Theirs;  not  mine,  because  I  didn't  have  any. 
I  managed  to  get  the  shooting-irons  away  from 
them  before  we  had  mixed  very  far." 

"You're  just  about  the  biggest,  long-eared, 
stiff-backed,  stubborn  wild  ass  of  the  wallows 
that  was  ever  let  loose  in  a  half-reformed  gun- 
country!"  grumbled  the  ex-cow-man.  " You're 
fixing  to  get  yourself  all  killed  up,  Smith.  Haven't 
you  sense  enough  to  see  that  these  rustlers  will 
rub  you  out  in  two  twitches  of  a  dead  lamb's 
tail  if  they've  made  up  their  minds  that  you  are 
the  High  Line  main  guy  and  the  only  one  ?" 

"Of  course,"  said  the  wild  ass  easily.  "If  they 
could  lay  me  up  for  a  month  or  two " 

"Lay  up,  nothing!"  retorted  Starbuck.  "Lay 
you  down,  about  six  feet  underground,  is  what  I 
mean ! 

"Pshaw!"  exclaimed  the  one  whose  fears  ran 
in  a  far  different  channel  from  any  that  could  be 
dug  by  mere  corporation  violence.  "This  is 
America,  in  the  twentieth  century.  We  don't 
kill  our  business  competitors  nowadays." 

"Don't  we?"  snorted  Starbuck.  "That  will 
be  all  right,  too.  We'll  suppose,  just  for  the  sake 
of  argument,  that  my  respected  and  respectable 
daddy-in-law,  or  whatever  other  silk-hatted  old 
money-bags  happens  to  be  paying  Crawford  Stan- 

198 


The  Narrow  World 

ton's  salary  and  commission,  wouldn't  send  out 
an  order  to  have  you  killed  off.  Maybe  Stanton, 
himself,  wouldn't  stand  for  it  if  you'd  put  it  that 
barefaced.  But  daddy-in-law,  and  Stanton,  and 
all  the  others,  hire  blacklegs  and  sharpers  and 
gunmen  and  thugs.  And  every  once  in  a  while 
somebody  takes  a  wink  for  a  nod — and  bang! 
goes  a  gun." 

"Well,  what's  the  answer?"  said  Smith. 

"Tote   an   arsenal,  yourself,   and   be   ready  to 

shoot  first  and  ask  questions  afterward.     That's 

the  only  way  you  can  live  peaceably  with  such 

men  as  Jake  Boogerfield  and  Lanterby  and  Pete 

imms. 

Smith  got  out  of  his  chair  and  took  a  turn  up 
and  down  the  length  of  the  room.  When  he  came 
back  to  stand  before  Starbuck,  he  said:  "I  did 
that,  Billy.  I've  been  carrying  a  gun  for  a  week 
and  more;  not  for  these  ditch  pirates,  but  for 
somebody  else.  The  other  night,  when  I  was  out 
at  Hillcrest,  Corona  happened  to  see  it.  I'm  not 
going  to  tell  you  what  she  said,  but  when  I  came 
back  to  town  the  next  morning,  I  chucked  the 
gun  into  a  desk  drawer.  And  I  hope  I'm  going 
to  be  man  enough  not  to  wear  it  again." 

Starbuck  dropped  the  subject  abruptly  and 
looked  at  his  watch. 

199 


The  Real  Man 

"You  liked  to  have  done  it,  pulling  me  off  up 
here,"  he  remarked.  "I'm  due  to  be  at  the  train 
to  meet  Mrs.  Billy,  and  I've  got  just  about  three 
minutes.     So  long.'' 

Smith  changed  his  street  clothes  leisurely  after 
Starbuck  had  gone,  and  made  ready  to  go  down 
to  the  cafe  dinner,  turning  over  in  his  mind, 
meanwhile,  the  problem  whose  solution  he  had 
tried  to  extract  from  his  late  visitor.  The  work- 
able answer  was  still  as  far  off  and  as  unattainable 
as  ever  when  he  went  down-stairs  and  stopped  at 
the  desk  to  toss  his  room-key  to  the  clerk. 

The  hotel  register  was  lying  open  on  the  counter, 
and  from  force  of  habit  he  ran  his  eye  down  the 
list  of  late  arrivals.  At  the  end  of  the  list,  in 
sprawling  characters  upon  which  the  ink  was  yet 
fresh,  he  read  his  sentence,  and  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  knew  the  meaning  of  panic  fear.  The 
newest  entry  was: 

"Josiah  Richlander  and  daughter,  Chicago." 

Smith  was  not  misled  by  the  place-name.  There 
was  only  one  "Josiah  Richlander"  in  the  world 
for  him,  and  he  knew  that  the  Lawrenceville 
magnate,  in  registering  from  Chicago,  was  only 
following  the  example  of  those  who,  for  good 
reasons  or  no  reason,  use  the  name  of  their  latest 
stopping-place  for  a  registry  address. 

200 


XIV 
A  Reprieve 

FOR  the  length  of  time  it  took  him  to  read 
Josiah  Richlander's  signature  on  the  Hophra 
House  register  and  to  grasp  the  full  meaning  of 
the  Lawrenceville  magnate's  presence  in  Brewster, 
Smith's  blood  ran  cold  and  there  was  a  momentary 
attack  of  shocked  consternation,  comparable  to 
nothing  that  any  past  experience  had  to  offer. 
It  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion  from  the  very 
outset  that,  sooner  or  later,  some  one  who  knew 
him  would  drift  in  from  the  world  beyond  the 
mountains;  but  in  all  his  imaginings  he  had  never 
dreamed  of  the  Richlander  possibility.  Verda, 
as  he  knew,  had  been  twice  to  Europe — and,  like 
many  of  her  kind,  had  never  been  west  of  the 
Mississippi  in  her  native  land.     Why,  then,  had 

she 

But  there  was  no  time  to  waste  in  curious 
speculations  as  to  the  whys  and  wherefores. 
Present  safety  was  the  prime  consideration.  With 
Josiah  Richlander  and  his  daughter  in  Brewster, 

201 


The  Real  Man 

and  guests  under  the  same  roof  with  him,  dis- 
covery, identification,  disgrace  were  knocking  at 
the  door.  Smith  had  a  return  of  the  panicky 
chill  when  he  realized  how  utterly  impossible  it 
would  be  for  a  man  with  his  business  activities 
to  hide,  even  temporarily,  not  in  the  hotel,  to  be 
sure,  but  anywhere  in  a  town  of  the  Brewster 
dimensions.  And  the  peril  held  no  saving  ele- 
ment of  uncertainty.  He  could  harbor  no  doubt 
as  to  what  Josiah  Richlander  would  do  if  dis- 
covery came.  For  so  long  a  time  as  should  be 
consumed  in  telegraphing  between  Brewster  and 
Lawrenceville,  Smith  thought  he  might  venture 
to  call  himself  a  free  man.  But  that  was  the 
limit. 

It  was  the  dregs  of  the  J.  Montague  subcon- 
sciousness yet  remaining  in  him  that  counselled 
flight,  basing  the  prompting  upon  a  bit  of  panic- 
engendered  reasoning.  Miss  Verda  and  her  father 
could  hardly  be  anything  more  than  transient 
visitors  in  Brewster.  Possibly  he  might  be  able 
to  keep  out  of  their  way  for  the  needful  day  or 
so.  To  resolve  in  such  an  urgency  was  to  act. 
One  minute  later  he  had  hailed  a  passing  auto- 
cab  at  the  hotel  entrance,  and  the  four  miles 
between  the  city  and  Colonel  Baldwin's  ranch 
had  been  tossed  to  the  rear  before  he  remembered 

202 


A  Reprieve 

that  he  had  expressly  declined  a  dinner  invitation 
for  that  same  evening  at  Hillcrest,  the  declina- 
tion basing  itself  upon  business  and  having  been 
made  by  word  of  mouth  to  Mrs.  Baldwin  in 
person  when  she  had  called  at  the  office  with  her 
daughter  just  before  the  luncheon  hour. 

Happily,  the  small  social  offense  went  unre- 
marked, or  at  least  unrebuked.  Smith  found  his 
welcome  at  the  ranch  that  of  a  man  who  has  the 
privilege  of  dropping  in  unannounced.  The 
colonel  was  jocosely  hospitable,  as  he  always 
was;  Mrs.  Baldwin  was  graciously  lenient — was 
good  enough,  indeed,  to  thank  the  eleventh-hour 
guest  for  reconsidering  at  the  last  moment;  and 
Corona 

Notwithstanding  all  that  had  come  to  pass; 
notwithstanding,  also,  that  his  footing  in  the 
Baldwin  household  had  come  to  be  that  of  a 
family  friend,  Smith  could  never  be  quite  sure 
of  the  bewitchingly  winsome  young  woman  who 
called  her  father  "Colonel-daddy."  Her  pose, 
if  it  were  a  pose,  was  the  attitude  of  the  entirely 
unspoiled  child  of  nature  and  the  wide  horizons. 
When  he  was  with  her  she  made  him  think  of  all 
the  words  expressive  of  transparency  and  ab- 
solute and  utter  unconcealment.  Yet  there  were 
moments  when  he  fancied  he  could  get  passing 

203 


The  Real  Man 

glimpses  of  a  subtler  personality  at  the  back  of 
the  wide-open,  frankly  questioning  eyes;  a  wise 
little  soul  lying  in  wait  behind  its  defenses;  pru- 
dent, all-knowing,  deceived  neither  by  its  own 
prepossessions  or  prejudices,  nor  by  any  of  the 
masqueradings  of  other  souls. 

Smith,  especially  in  this  later  incarnation  which 
had  so  radically  changed  him,  believed  as  little 
in  the  psychic  as  any  hardheaded  young  busi- 
ness iconoclast  of  an  agnostic  century  could.  But 
on  this  particular  evening  when  he  was  smoking 
his  after-dinner  pipe  on  the  flagstoned  porch  with 
Corona  for  his  companion,  there  were  phenomena 
apparently  unexplainable  on  any  purely  material 
hypothesis. 

"I  am  sure  I  have  much  less  than  half  of  the 
curiosity  that  women  are  said  to  have,  but, 
really,  I  do  want  to  know  what  dreadful  thing 
has  happened  to  you  since  we  met  you  in  the 
High  Line  offices  this  morning — mamma  and  I," 
was  the  way  in  which  one  of  the  phenomena  was 
made  to  occur;  and  Smith  started  so  nervously 
that  he  dropped  his  pipe. 

"You  can  be  the  most  unexpected  person, 
when  you  try,"  he  laughed,  but  the  laugh  scarcely 
rang  true.  "What  makes  you  think  that  any- 
thing has  happened  ?" 

204 


A  Reprieve 

"I  don't  think — I  know"  the  small  seeress 
went  on  with  calm  assurance.  "You've  been 
telling  us  in  all  sorts  of  dumb  ways  that  you've 
had  an  upsetting  shock  of  some  kind;  and  I 
don't  believe  it's  another  lawsuit.  Am  I  right, 
so  far  ? " 

"I  believe  you  are  a  witch,  and  it's  a  mighty 
good  thing  you  didn't  live  in  the  Salem  period," 
he  rejoined.  "They  would  have  hanged  you  to 
a  dead  moral  certainty." 

"Then  there  was  something?"  she  queried; 
adding,  jubilantly:    "I  knew  it!" 

"Go  on,"  said  the  one  to  whom  it  had  happened; 
"go  on  and  tell  me  the  rest  of  it." 

"Oh,  that  isn't  fair;  even  a  professional  clair- 
voyant has  to  be  told  the  color  of  her  eyes  and 
hair." 

"Wha-what!"  the  ejaculation  was  fairly  jarred 
out  of  him  and  for  the  moment  he  fancied  he  could 
feel  a  cool  breeze  blowing  up  the  back  of  his 
neck. 

The  clairvoyant  who  did  not  claim  to  be  a 
professional  was  laughing  softly. 

"You  told  me  once  that  a  woman  was  adorable 
in  the  exact  degree  in  which  she  could  afford  to 
be  visibly  transparent;  yes,  you  said  '  afford,' 
and  I've  been  holding  it  against  you.     Now  I'm 

205 


The  Real  Man 

going  to  pay  you  back.  You  are  the  transparent 
one,  this  time.  You  have  as  good  as  admitted 
that  the  ' happening'  thing  isn't  a  man;  'wha- 
what'  always  means  that,  you  know;  so  it  must 
be  a  woman.  Is  it  the  Miss  Richlander  you  were 
telling  me  about  ?" 

There  are  times  when  any  mere  man  may  be 
shocked  into  telling  the  simple  truth,  and  Smith 
had  come  face  to  face  with  one  of  them.  "It  is," 
he  said. 

"She  is  in  Brewster  ?" 

"Yes." 

"When  did  she  come?" 
lhis  evening. 

"And  you  ran  away  ?  That  was  horribly  un- 
kind, don't  you  think — after  she  had  come  so 
far?" 

"Hold  on,"  he  broke  in.  "Don't  let's  go  so 
fast.  I  didn't  ask  her  to  come.  And,  besides, 
she  didn't  come  to  see  me." 

"Did  she  tell  you  that?" 

"I  have  taken  precious  good  care  that  she 
shouldn't  have  the  chance.  I  saw  her  name — 
and  her  father's — on  the  hotel  register;  and  just 
about  that  time  I  remembered  that  I  could  prob- 
ably get  a  bite  to  eat  out  here." 

"You  are  queer!     All  men  are  a  little  queer, 

206 


A  Reprieve 

I  think — always  excepting  Colonel-daddy.     Don't 
you  want  to  see  her?" 

"Indeed,  I  don't!" 

"Not  even  for  old  times'  sake?" 

"No;  not  even  for  old  times'  sake.  I've  given 
you  the  wrong  impression  completely,  if  you  think 
there  is  any  obligation  on  my  part.  It  never  got 
beyond  the  watch-case  picture  stage,  as  I  have 
told  you.  It  might  have  drifted  on  to  the  other 
things  in  the  course  of  time,  simply  because 
neither  of  us  might  have  known  any  better  than 
to  let  it  drift.  But  that's  all  a  back  number, 
now. 

"Just  the  same,  her  coming  shocked  you." 

"It  certainly  did,"  he  confessed  soberly;  and 
then:  "Have  you  forgotten  what  I  told  you  about 
the  circumstances  under  which  I  left  home?" 

"Oh!"  she  murmured,  and  as  once  before  there 
was  a  little  gasp  to  go  with  the  word.  ,  Then :  "  She 
wouldn't — she  wouldn't " 

"No,"  he  answered;  "she  wouldn't;  but  her 
father  would." 

"So  her  father  wanted  her  to  marry  the  other 
man,  did  he  ?  What  was  he  like — the  other  man  ? 
I  don't  believe  you've  ever  told  me  anything 
about  him." 

Smith's  laugh  was  an  easing  of  strains. 

207 


The  Real  Man 

"Now  your  'control'  is  playing  tricks  on  you. 
There  were  a  dozen  other  men,  more  or  less." 

"And  her  picture  was  in  the  watch-case  of 
each  ?" 

"You've  pumped  me  dry,"  he  returned,  the 
sardonic  humor  reasserting  itself.  "I  haven't 
her  watch-case  list;  I  never  had  it.  But  I  guess 
it's  within  bounds  to  suppose  that  she  got  the 
little  pictures  from  the  photographer  by  the  half- 
dozen,  at  least.  Young  women  in  my  part  of 
the  world  don't  think  much  of  the  watch-case 
habit;   I  mean  they  don't  regard  it  seriously." 

A  motor-car  was  coming  up  the  driveway  and 
Smith  was  not  altogether  sorry  when  he  saw 
Stillings,  the  lawyer,  climb  out  of  it  to  mount 
the  steps.  It  was  high  time  that  an  interruption 
of  some  sort  was  breaking  in,  and  when  the  colonel 
appeared  and  brought  Stillings  with  him  to  the 
lounging  end  of  the  porch,  a  business  conference 
began  which  gave  Miss  Corona  an  excuse  to  dis- 
appear, and  which  accounted  easily  for  the  re- 
mainder of  the  evening. 

Borrowing  a  horse  from  the  Hillcrest  corral 
the  following  morning,  Smith  returned  to  Brewster 
by  way  of  the  dam,  making  the  long  detour  count 
for  as  much  as  possible  in  the  matter  of  sheer 
time-killing.     It  was  a  little  before  noon  when  he 

208 


A  Reprieve 

reached  town  by  the  roundabout  route,  and  after 
putting  the  horse  up  at  the  livery-stable  in  which 
Colonel  Baldwin  was  a  half  owner,  he  went  to 
the  hotel  to  reconnoitre.  The  room-clerk  who 
gave  him  his  key  gave  him  also  the  information 
he  craved. 

"Mr.  Richlander  ?  Oh,  yes;  he  left  early  this 
morning  by  the  stage.  He  is  interested  in  some 
gold  properties  up  in  the  range  beyond  Topaz. 
Fine  old  gentleman.  Do  you  know  him,  Mr. 
Smith  ?" 

"The  name  seemed  familiar  when  I  saw  it  on 
the  register  last  evening/'  was  Smith's  evasion; 
"but  it  is  not  such  a  very  uncommon  name.  He 
didn't  say  when  he  was  coming  back?" 

"No." 

Smith  took  a  fresh  hold  upon  life  and  liberty. 
While  the  world  is  perilously  narrow  in  some 
respects,  it  is  comfortably  broad  in  others,  and 
a  danger  once  safely  averted  is  a  danger  lessened. 
Snatching  a  hasty  luncheon  in  the  grill-room,  the 
righting  manager  of  Timanyoni  High  Line  hurried 
across  to  the  private  suite  in  the  Kinzie  Building 
offices  into  which  he  had  lately  moved  and  once 
more  plunged  into  the  business  battle. 

Notwithstanding  a  new  trouble  which  Sai- 
lings had  wished  to  talk  over  with  his  president 

209 


The  Real  Man 

and  the  financial  manager  the  night  before — the 
claim  set  up  by  the  dead-and-gone  paper  rail- 
road to  a  right  of  way  across  the  Timanyoni  at 
the  dam — the  battle  was  progressing  favorably. 
Williams  was  accomplishing  the  incredible  in  the 
matter  of  speed,  and  the  dam  was  now  nearly 
ready  to  withstand  the  high-water  stresses  when 
they  should  come.  The  power-house  was  rising 
rapidly,  and  the  machinery  was  on  the  way  from 
the  East.  Altogether  things  were  looking  more 
hopeful  than  they  had  at  any  period  since  the 
hasty  reorganization.  Smith  attacked  the  multi- 
farious details  of  his  many-sided  job  with  re- 
turning energy.  If  he  could  make  shift  to  hold 
on  for  a  few  days  or  weeks  longer.  .  .  . 

He  set  his  teeth  upon  a  desperate  determination 
to  hold  on  at  any  cost;  at  all  costs.  If  Josiah 
Richlander  should  come  back  to  Brewster — but 
Smith  would  not  allow  himself  to  think  of  this. 
At  the  worst,  the  period  of  peril  could  not  be 
long.  Smith  knew  his  man,  and  was  well  assured 
that  it  would  take  something  more  alluring  than 
a  gold-mine  to  keep  the  Lawrenceville  millionaire 
away  from  his  business  at  home  for  any  consid- 
erable length  of  time.  With  the  comforting  con- 
clusion for  a  stimulus,  the  afternoon  of  hard 
work  passed  quickly  and  there  was  only  a  single 

210 


A  Reprieve 

small  incident  to  break  the  busy  monotonies. 
While  Smith  was  dictating  the  final  batch  of 
letters  to  the  second  stenographer  a  young  man 
with  sleepy  eyes  and  yellow  creosote  stains  on 
his  fingers  came  in  to  ask  for  a  job.  Smith  put 
him  off  until  the  correspondence  was  finished  and 
then  gave  him  a  hearing. 

"What  kind  of  work  are  you  looking  for?" 
was  the  brisk  query. 

"Shorthand  work,  if  I  can  get  it,"  said  the  man 
out  of  a  job. 

"How  rapid  are  you?" 

"I  have  been  a  court  reporter." 

Smith  was  needing  another  stenographer  and 
he  looked  the  applicant  over  appraisingly.  The 
appraisal  was  not  entirely  satisfactory.  There 
was  a  certain  shifty  furtiveness  in  the  half-opened 
eyes,  and  the  rather  weak  chin  hinted  at  a  possible 
lack  of  the  discreetness  which  is  the  prime  requisite 
in  a  confidential  clerk. 

"Any  business  experience?" 

"Yes;    IVe  done  some  railroad  work." 

"Here  in  Brewster?" 

Shaw  lied  smoothly.     "No;   in  Omaha." 

"Any  recommendations?" 

The  young  man  produced  a  handful  of  "To 
Whom  it  May  Concern"  letters.     They  were  all 

211 


The  Real  Man 

on  business  letter-heads,  and  were  apparently 
genuine,  though  none  of  them  were  local.  Smith 
ran  them  over  hastily  and  he  had  no  means  of 
knowing  that  they  had  been  carefully  prepared 
by  Crawford  Stanton  at  no  little  cost  in  ingenuity 
and  painstaking.  How  careful  the  preparation 
had  been  was  revealed  in  the  applicant's  ready 
suggestion. 

"You  can  write  or  wire  to  any  of  these  gentle- 
men, "  he  said;  "only,  if  there  is  a  job  open,  I'd 
be  glad  to  go  to  work  on  trial." 

The  business  training  of  the  present  makes  for 
quick  decisions.  Smith  snapped  a  rubber  band 
around  the  letters  and  shot  them  into  a  pigeon- 
hole of  his  desk. 

"We'll  give  you  a  chance  to  show  what  you 
can  do,"  he  told  the  man  out  of  work.  "If  you 
measure  up  to  the  requirements,  the  job  will  be 
permanent.  You  may  come  in  to-morrow  morn- 
ing and  report  to  Mr.  Miller,  the  chief  clerk." 

The  young  man  nodded  his  thanks  and  went 
out,  leaving  just  as  the  first  stenographer  was 
bringing  in  his  allotment  of  letters  for  the  sig- 
natures. Having  other  things  to  think  of,  Smith 
forgot  the  sleepy-eyed  young  fellow  instantly. 
But  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  he  would  not  have 
dismissed  the  incident  so  readily  if  he  had  known 

212 


A  Reprieve 

that  Shaw  had  been  waiting  in  the  anteroom 
during  the  better  part  of  the  dictating  interval, 
and  that  on  the  departing  applicant's  cuffs  were 
microscopic  shorthand  notes  of  a  number  of  the 
more  important  letters. 


213 


XV 
"Sweet  Fortune's  Minion" 

IT  was  late  dinner-time  when  Smith  closed  the 
big  roll-top  desk  in  the  new  private  suite  in 
the  Kinzie  Building  offices  and  went  across  the 
street  to  the  hotel.  A  little  farther  along,  as  he 
was  coming  down  from  his  rooms  to  go  to  dinner, 
he  saw  Starbuck  in  the  lobby  talking  to  Williams; 
but  since  they  did  not  see  him,  he  passed  on  with- 
out stopping. 

The  great  dining-room  of  the  Hophra  House 
was  on  the  ground  floor;  a  stucco-pillared  im- 
mensity with  scenic  mural  decorations  after 
Bierstadt  and  a  ceiling  over  which  fat  cupids 
and  the  classical  nude  in  goddesses  rioted  in  the 
soft  radiance  of  the  shaded  electrics.  The  room 
was  well  filled,  but  the  head  waiter  found  Smith 
a  small  table  in  the  shelter  of  one  of  the  pillars 
and  brought  him  an  evening  paper. 

Smith  gave  his  dinner  order  and  began  to 
glance  through  the  paper.  The  subdued  chatter 
and  clamor  of  the  big  room  dinned  pleasantly  in 

214 


Sweet  Fortune's  Minion 


fi 


his  ears,  and  the  disturbing  thought  of  peril  immi- 
nent was  losing  its  keenest  cutting  edge  when  sud- 
denly the  solid  earth  yawned  and  the  heavens 
fell.  Half  absently  he  realized  that  the  head 
waiter  was  seating  some  one  at  the  place  opposite 
his  own;  then  the  faint  odor  of  violets,  instantly 
reminiscent,  came  to  his  nostrils.  He  knew  in- 
stinctively, and  before  he  could  put  the  news- 
paper aside,  what  had  happened.  Hence  the 
shock,  when  he  found  himself  face  to  face  with 
Verda  Richlander,  was  not  so  completely  paralyz- 
ing as  it  might  have  been.  She  was  looking  across 
at  him  with  a  lazy  smile  in  the  glorious  brown 
eyes,  and  the  surprise  was  quite  evidently  no 
surprise  for  her. 

"I  told  the  waiter  to  bring  me  over  here,"  she 
explained;  and  then,  quite  pleasantly:  "It  is 
an  exceedingly  little  world,  isn't  it,  Montague  ?" 

He  nodded  gloomily. 

"Much  too  little  for  a  man  to  hide  in,"  he 
agreed;  adding:  "But  I  think  I  have  known 
that,  all  along;  known,  at  least,  that  it  would 
be  only  a  question  of  time." 

The  waiter  had  come  to  take  Miss  Richlander's 
dinner  order,  and  the  talk  paused.  After  the 
man  had  gone  she  began  again. 

"Why  did  you  run  away  ?"  she  asked. 

215 


The  Real  Man 

Smith  shrugged  his  shoulders  helplessly. 

"What  else  was  there  for  me  to  do.  Besides, 
I  believed,  at  the  time,  that  I  had  killed  Dunham. 
I  could  have  sworn  he  was  dead  when  I  left  him." 

She  was  toying  idly  with  the  salad-fork.  "  Some- 
times I  am  almost  sorry  that  he  wasn't/'  she 
offered. 

"Which  is  merely  another  way  of  saying  that 
you  were  unforgiving  enough  to  wish  to  see  me 
hanged  ?"  he  suggested,  with  a  sour  smile. 

"It  wasn't  altogether  that;  no."  There  was  a 
pause  and  then  she  went  on:  "I  suppose  you 
know  what  has  been  happening  since  you  ran 
away — what  has  been  done  in  Lawrenceville,  I 
mean  r 

"I  know  that  I  have  been  indicted  by  the 
grand  jury  and  that  there  is  a  reward  out  for 
me.     It's  two  thousand  dollars,  isn't  it?" 

She  let  the  exact  figure  of  the  reward  go  un- 
confirmed. 

"And  still  you  are  going  about  in  public  as  if 
all  the  hue  and  cry  meant  nothing  to  you  ?  The 
beard  is  an  improvement — it  makes  you  look 
older  and  more  determined — but  it  doesn't  dis- 
guise you.  I  should  have  known  you  anywhere, 
and  other  people  will." 

Again  his  shoulders  went  up. 
216 


it 


Sweet  Fortune's  Minion " 


"What's  the  use?"  he  said.  "I  couldn't  dig 
deep  enough  nor  fly  high  enough  to  dodge  every- 
body. You  have  found  me,  and  if  you  hadn't, 
somebody  else  would  have.  It  would  have  been 
the  same  any  time  and  anywhere." 

"You  knew  we  were  here?"  she  inquired. 

He  made  the  sign  of  assent. 

"And  yet  you  didn't  think  it  worth  while  to 
take  your  meals  somewhere  else?" 

He  made  a  virtue  of  necessity.  "I  should 
certainly  have  taken  the  small  precaution  you 
suggest  if  the  clerk  hadn't  told  me  that  your 
father  had  gone  up  to  the  Gloria  district.  I  took 
it  for  granted  that  you  had  gone  with  him." 

The  lazy  smile  came  again  in  the  brown  eyes, 
and  it  irritated  him. 

"I  am  going  to  believe  that  you  wouldn't  have 
tried  to  hide  from  me,"  she  said  slowly.  "You'll 
give  my  conceit  that  much  to  live  on,  won't  you  ?" 

"You  mean  that  I  ought  to  have  been  willing 
to  trust  you  ?  Perhaps  I  was.  But  I  could  hardly 
think  of  you  as  apart  from  your  father.  I  knew 
very  well  what  he  would  do." 

"I  was  intending  to  go  on  up  to  the  mines  with 
him,"  she  said  evenly.  "But  last  evening,  while 
I  was  waiting  for  him  to  finish  his  talk  with 
some  mining  men,   I  was  standing  in  the  mez- 

217 


The  Real  Man 

zanine,  looking  down  into  the  lobby.  I  saw  you 
go  to  the  desk  and  leave  your  key;  I  was  sure 
I  couldn't  be  mistaken;  so  I  told  father  that  I 
had  changed  my  mind  about  going  out  to  the 
mines  and  he  seemed  greatly  relieved.  He  had 
been  trying  to  persuade  me  that  I  would  be 
much  more  comfortable  if  I  should  wait  for  him 
here." 

It  was  no  stirring  of  belated  sentiment  that 
made  Smith  say:  "You — you  cared  enough  to 
wish  to  see  me  ?" 

"Naturally,"  she  replied.  "Some  people  for- 
get easily:  others  don't.  I  suppose  I  am  one  of 
the  others." 

Smith  remembered  the  proverb  about  a  woman 
scorned  and  saw  a  menace  more  to  be  feared 
than  all  the  terrors  of  the  law  lurking  in  the  even- 
toned  rejoinder.  It  was  with  some  foolish  idea 
of  thrusting  the  menace  aside  at  any  cost  that 
he  said:  "You  have  only  to  send  a  ten-word 
telegram  to  Sheriff  Macauley,  you  know.  I'm 
not  sure  that  it  isn't  your  duty  to  do  so." 

"Why  should  I  telegraph  Barton  Macauley?" 
she  asked  placidly.    "I'm  not  one  of  his  deputies." 

"But  you  believe  me  guilty,  don't  you?" 

The  handsome  shoulders  twitched  in  the  barest 
hint   of   indifference.      "As   I   have   said,   I    am 

218 


11  Sweet  Fortune's  Minion  " 

not  in  Bart  Macauley's  employ — nor  in  Mr. 
Watrous  Dunham's.  Neither  am  I  the  judge  and 
jury  to  put  you  in  the  prisoner's  box  and  try  you. 
I  suppose  you  knew  what  you  were  doing,  and 
why  you  did  it.  But  I  do  think  you  might  have 
written  me  a  line,  Montague.  That  would  have 
been  the  least  you  could  have  done." 

The  serving  of  the  salad  course  broke  in  just 
here,  and  for  some  time  afterward  the  talk  was 
not  resumed.  Miss  Richlander  was  apparently 
enjoying  her  dinner.  Smith  was  not  enjoying 
his,  but  he  ate  as  a  troubled  man  often  will; 
mechanically  and  as  a  matter  of  routine.  It 
was  not  until  the  dessert  had  been  served  that 
the  young  woman  took  up  the  thread  of  the 
conversation  precisely  as  if  it  had  never  been 
dropped. 

"I  think  you  know  that  you  have  no  reason 
to  be  afraid  of  me,  Montague;  but  I  can't  say 
as  much  for  father.  He  will  be  back  in  a  few 
days,  and  when  he  comes  it  will  be  prudent  for 
you  to  vanish.    That  is  a  future,  however." 

Smith's  laugh  was  brittle. 

"We'll  leave  it  a  future,  if  you  like.  'Sufficient 
unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof.'" 

"Oh;   so  you  class  me  as  an  evil,  do  you  ?" 

"No;   you  know  I  didn't  mean  that;   I  merely 

219 


The  Real  Man 

mean  that  it's  no  use  crossing  the  bridges  before 
we  come  to  them.  I've  been  living  from  day  to 
day  so  long  now,  that  I  am  becoming  hardened 
to  it." 

Again  there  was  a  pause,  and  again  it  was  Miss 
Richlander  who  broke  it. 

"You  don't  want  to  go  back  to  Lawrence- 
ville?"  she  suggested. 

"Hardly — in  the  circumstances." 

"What  will  you  do? — go  away  from  Brewster 
and  stay  until  father  has  finished  buying  his 
mine  r 

"No;  I  can't  very  well  go  away — for  business 
reasons." 

The  slow  smile  was  dimpling  again  at  the 
corners  of  the  perfect  mouth. 

"You  are  going  to  need  a  little  help,  Montague — 
my  help — aren't  you  ?  It  occurs  to  me  that  you 
can  well  afford  to  show  me  some  little  friendly 
attention  while  I  am  Robinson-Crusoed  here 
waiting  for  father  to  come  back." 

"Let  me  understand,"  he  broke  in,  frowning 
across  the  table  at  her.  "You  are  willing  to  ignore 
what  has  happened — to  that  extent  ?  You  are 
not  forgetting  that  in  the  eyes  of  the  law  I  am  a 
criminal  ?" 

She  made  a  faint  little  gesture  of  impatience. 
220 


"  Sweet  Fortune's  Minion  " 

"Why  do  you  persist  in  dragging  that  in  ?  I 
am  not  supposed  to  know  anything  about  your 
business  affairs,  with  Watrous  Dunham  or  any- 
body else.  Besides,  no  one  knows  me  here,  and 
no  one  cares.  Besides,  again,  I  am  a  stranger 
in  a  strange  city  and  we  are — or  we  used  to  be — 
old  friends.'' 

Her  half-cynical  tone  made  him  frown  again, 
thoughtfully,  this  time. 

"Women  are  curious  creatures,"  he  commented. 
"I  used  to  think  I  knew  a  little  something  about 
them,  but  I  guess  it  was  a  mistake.  What  do 
you  want  me  to  do  ?" 

"Oh,  anything  you  like;  anything  that  will 
keep  me  from  being  bored  to  death." 

Smith  laid  his  napkin  aside  and  glanced  at  his 
watch. 

"There  is  a  play  of  some  kind  on  at  the  opera- 
house,  I  believe,"  he  said,  rising  and  going  around 
to  draw  her  chair  aside.  "If  you'd  care  to  go, 
I'll  see  if  I  can't  hold  somebody  up  for  a  couple 
of  seats." 

"That  is  more  like  it.  I  used  to  be  afraid  that 
you  hadn't  a  drop  of  sporting  blood  in  you, 
Montague,  and  I  am  glad  to  learn,  even  at  this 
late  day,  that  I  was  mistaken.  Take  me  up- 
stairs, and  we'll  go  to  the  play." 

221 


The  Real  Man 

They  left  the  dining-room  together,  and  there 
was  more  than  one  pair  of  eyes  to  follow  them  in 
frank  admiration.  "What  a  strikingly  hand- 
some couple,"  said  a  bejewelled  lady  who  sat  at 
the  table  nearest  the  door;  and  her  companion, 
a  gentleman  with  restless  eyes  and  thin  lips  and 
a  rather  wicked  jaw,  said:  "Yes;  I  don't  know 
the  woman,  but  the  man  is  Colonel  Baldwin's 
new  financier;  the  fellow  who  calls  himself  'John 
Smith.'" 

The  bediamonded  lady  smiled  dryly.  "You 
say  that  as  if  you  had  a  mortal  quarrel  with  his 
name,  Crawford.  If  I  were  the  girl,  /  shouldn't 
find  fault  with  the  name.  You  say  you  don't 
know  her  ?" 

Stanton  had  pushed  his  chair  back  and  was 
rising.  "Take  your  time  with  the  ice-cream,  and 
I'll  join  you  later  up-stairs.  I'm  going  to  find 
out  who  the  girl  is,  since  you  want  to  know." 

On  the  progress  through  the  lobby  to  the  ele- 
vators there  were  others  to  make  remarks  upon 
the  handsome  pair;  among  them  the  ex-cowboy 
mine  owner  whose  name  was  still  "Billy"  Star- 
buck  to  everybody  in  the  Timanyoni  region. 

"Say!  wouldn't  that  jar  you,  now?"  he  mut- 
tered to  himself.  And  again:  "This  John  Smith 
fellow  sure  does  need  a  guardian — and  for  just 

222 


"  Sweet  Fortune's  Minion  " 

this  one  time  I  reckon  I  might  as  well  butt  in  and 
be  it.  If  he's  fixing  to  shake  that  little  Corona 
girl  he's  sure  going  to  earn  what's  coming  to  him. 
That's  my  ante." 


223 


XVI 

Broken  Threads 

MR.  Crawford  Stanton's  attempt  to  find  out 
who  Smith's  dinner  companion  was  began 
with  a  casual  question  shot  at  the  hotel  clerk; 
with  that,  and  a  glance  at  the  register.  From 
the  clerk  he  learned  Miss  Richlander's  name  and 
the  circumstances  under  which  she  had  become 
a  waiting  transient  in  the  hotel.  From  the  register 
he  got  nothing  but  the  magnate's  name  and  the 
misleading  address,  "Chicago." 

"Is  Mr.  Richlander  a  Chicago  man?"  he 
asked  of  the  clerk. 

"No.  He  merely  registered  from  his  last  stop — 
as  a  good  many  people  do.  His  home  town  is 
Lawrenceville." 

"Which  Lawrenceville  is  that?"  Stanton  in- 
quired;  but  the  clerk  shook  his  head. 

"You  may  search  me,  Mr.  Stanton.  I  didn't 
ask.  It's  in  Indiana,  isn't  it  ?  You  might  find 
out  from  Miss  Richlander." 

Stanton  became  thoughtful  for  a  moment  and 
then    crossed    the    lobby   to    his    business    office, 

224 


Broken  Threads 

which  had  an  entrance  from  the  hotel  ground 
floor.  Behind  the  closed  door,  which  he  took  the 
precaution  to  lock,  he  turned  on  the  light  and 
opened  a  large  atlas.  A  glance  at  the  town  list- 
ings revealed  some  half-dozen  Lawrencevilles,  in 
as  many  different  States,  one  State  offering  two, 
for  good  measure.  That  ended  the  search  for  the 
moment,  and  a  little  later  he  went  up-stairs  to 
rejoin  the  resplendent  lady,  who  was  taking  her 
after-dinner  ease  in  the  most  comfortable  loung- 
ing-chair  the  mezzanine  parlors  afforded. 

"No  good/'  he  reported.  "The  girl's  name  is 
Richlander,  and  she — or  her  father — comes  from 
one  of  half  a  dozen  ' Lawrencevilles' — you  can 
take  your  choice  among  'em." 

"Money?"  queried  the  comfortable  one. 

"Buying  mines  in  the  Topaz,"  said  the  hus- 
band mechanically.  He  was  not  thinking  specially 
of  Mr.  Josiah  Richlander's  possible  or  probable 
rating  with  the  commercial  agencies;  he  was 
wondering  how  well  Miss  Richlander  knew  John 
Smith,  and  in  what  manner  she  could  be  persuaded 
to  tell  what  she  might  know.  While  he  was  turn- 
ing it  over  in  his  mind  the  two  in  question,  Smith 
and  the  young  woman,  passed  through  the  lobby 
on  their  way  to  the  theatre.  Stanton,  watching 
them  narrowly  from   the  vantage-point  afforded 

225 


The  Real  Man 

by  the  galleried  mezzanine,  drew  his  own  con- 
clusions. By  all  the  little  signs  they  were  not 
merely  chance  acquaintances  or  even  casual 
friends.  Their  relations  were  closer — and  of 
longer  standing. 

Stanton  puzzled  over  his  problem  a  long  time, 
long  after  Mrs.  Stanton  had  forsaken  the  easy 
chair  and  had  disappeared  from  the  scene.  His 
Eastern  employers  were  growing  irascibly  im- 
patient, and  the  letters  and  telegrams  were  be- 
ginning to  have  an  abrasive  quality  disagreeably 
irritating  to  a  hard-working  field  captain.  Who 
was  this  fellow  Smith,  and  what  was  his  backing  ? 
they  were  beginning  to  ask;  and  with  the  asking 
there  were  intimations  that  if  Mr.  Crawford 
Stanton  were  finding  his  task  too  difficult,  there 
was  always  an  alternative. 

As  a  business  man  Stanton  was  usually  able 
to  keep  irritating  personalities  at  a  proper  dis- 
tance. But  the  Timanyoni-Escalante  war  was 
beginning  to  get  on  his  nerves.  At  first,  it  had 
presented  itself  as  the  simplest  of  business  cam- 
paigns. A  great  land  grab  had  been  carried 
through,  and  there  was  an  ample  water-supply 
to  transform  the  arid  desert  into  ranch  acres  with 
enormous  increases  in  values.  A  farmers'  ditch 
company,  loosely  organized  and  administered,  was 

226 


Broken  Threads 

the  sole  obstacle  in  the  way,  and  upon  his  arrival 
in  Brewster,  Stanton  had  set  blithely  about  re- 
moving it. 

Just  when  all  was  going  well,  when  the  farmers 
were  almost  in  sight  of  their  finish,  and  the  actual 
stock  absorption  had  fairly  begun,  the  new  factor 
had  broken  in;  a  young  man  capable  and  daring 
to  a  degree  that  was  amazing,  even  in  the  direct 
and  courageous  West.  Where  and  how  Smith 
would  strike,  Stanton  never  knew  until  after  the 
blow  had  been  sent  home.  Secrecy,  the  most 
difficult  requirement  in  any  business  campaign, 
had  been  so  strictly  maintained  that  up  to  the 
present  evening  of  cogitations  in  the  Hophra 
House  mezzanine,  Stanton  was  still  unable  to 
tell  his  New  York  and  Washington  employers 
positively  whether  Smith  had  money — Eastern 
money — behind  him,  or  was  engineering  the  big 
coup  alone.  Kinzie  was  steadfastly  refusing  to 
talk,  and  the  sole  significant  fact,  thus  far,  was 
that  practically  all  of  the  new  High  Line  stock 
had  been  taken  up  by  local  purchasers. 

Stanton  was  still  wrestling  with  his  problem 
when  the  "handsome  couple"  returned  from  the 
play.  The  trust  field  captain  saw  them  as  they 
crossed  the  lobby  to  the  elevator  and  again 
marked  the  little  evidences  of  familiarity.    "That 

227 


The  Real  Man 

settles  it,"  he  mused,  with  an  outthrust  of  the 
pugnacious  jaw.  "She  knows  more  about  Smith 
than  anybody  else  in  this  neck  of  woods — and 
she's  got  it  to  tell!" 

Stanton  began  his  inquisition  for  better  in- 
formation the  following  day,  with  the  bejewelled 
lady  for  his  ally.  Miss  Richlander  was  alone 
and  unfriended  in  the  hotel — and  also  a  little 
bored.  Hence  she  was  easy  of  approach;  so  easy 
that  by  luncheon  time  the  sham  promoter's  wife 
was  able  to  introduce  her  husband.  Stanton  lost 
no  moment  investigative.  For  the  inquiring 
purpose,  Smith  was  made  to  figure  as  a  business 
acquaintance,  and  Stanton  was  generous  in  his 
praises  of  the  young  man's  astounding  financial 
ability. 

"He's  simply  a  wonder,  Miss  Richlander!" 
he  confided  over  the  luncheon-table.  "Coming 
here  a  few  weeks  ago,  absolutely  unknown,  he 
has  already  become  a  prominent  man  of  affairs 
in  Brewster.  And  so  discreetly  reticent!  To 
this  good  day  nobody  knows  where  he  comes 
from,  or  anything  about  him." 

"No?"  said  Miss  Verda.  "How  singular!" 
But  she  did  not  volunteer  to  supply  any  of  the 
missing  biographical  facts. 

"Absolutely     nothing,"      Stanton      went      on 

228 


Broken  Threads 

smoothly.  "And,  of  course,  his  silence  about 
himself  has  been  grossly  misinterpreted.  I  have 
even  heard  it  said  that  he  is  an  escaped  con- 
vict. 

"How  perfectly  absurd!"  was  the  smiling 
comment. 

"Isn't  it?  But  you  know  how  people  will 
talk.  They  are  saying  now  that  his  name  isn't 
Smith;  that  he  has  merely  taken  the  commonest 
name  in  the  category  as  an  alias." 

"I  can  contradict  that,  anyway,"  Miss  Rich- 
lander  offered.  "His  name  is  really  and  truly 
John  Smith." 

"You  have  known  him  a  long  time,  haven't 
you?"  inquired  the  lady  with  the  headlight 
diamonds. 

"Oh,  yes;    for  quite  a  long  time,  indeed." 

"That  was  back  in  New  York  State?"  Stan- 
ton slipped  in. 

"In  the  East,  yes.  He  comes  of  an  excellent 
family.  His  father's  people  were  well-to-do  farm- 
ers, and  one  of  his  great-uncles  on  his  mother's 
side  was  on  the  supreme  bench  in  our  State; 
he  was  chief  justice  during  the  later  years  of  his 
life." 

"What  State  did  you  say?"  queried  Stanton 
229 


The  Real  Man 

craftily.  But  Miss  Verda  was  far  too  wide-awake 
to  let  him  surprise  her. 

"Our  home  State,  of  course.  I  don't  believe 
any  member  of  Mr.  Smith's  immediate  family 
on  either  side  has  ever  moved  out  of  it." 

Stanton  gave  it  up  for  the  time  being,  and  was 
convinced  upon  two  points.  Miss  Richlander's 
reticence  could  have  but  one  meaning:  for  some 
good  reason,  Smith  would  not,  or  dare  not,  give 
any  home  references.  That  was  one  point,  and 
the  second  was  that  Miss  Richlander  knew,  and 
knew  that  others  wanted  to  know — and  refused 
to  tell.  Stanton  weighed  the  probabilities  thought- 
fully in  the  privacy  of  his  office.  There  were  two 
hypotheses:  Smith  might  have  business  reasons 
for  the  secrecy — he  might  have  backers  who 
wished  to  remain  completely  unknown  in  their 
fight  against  the  big  land  trust;  but  if  he  had  no 
backers  the  other  hypothesis  clinched  itself  in- 
stantly— he  was  in  hiding;  he  had  done  some- 
thing from  which  he  had  run  away. 

It  was  not  until  after  office  hours  that  Stanton 
was  able  to  reduce  his  equation  to  its  simplest 
terms,  and  it  was  Shaw,  dropping  in  to  make  his 
report  after  his  first  day's  work  as  clerk  and 
stenographer  in  the  High  Line  headquarters,  who 
cleared  the  air  of  at  least  one  fog  bank  of  doubts. 

230 


Broken  Threads 

"I've  been  through  the  records  and  the  stock- 
books,"  said  the  spy,  when,  in  obedience  to  orders, 
he  had  locked  the  office  door.  "Smith  is  play- 
ing a  lone  hand.  He  flimflammed  Kinzie  for  his 
first  chunk  of  money,  and  after  that  it  was  easy. 
Every  dollar  invested  in  High  Line  has  been  dug 
up  right  here  in  the  Timanyoni.  Here's  the  list 
of  stockholders. " 

Stanton  ran  his  eye  down  the  string  of  names 
and  swore  when  he  saw  Maxwell's  subscription 
of  #25,000.  "Damn  it!"  he  rasped;  "and  he's 
Fairbairn's  own  son-in-law!" 

"So  is  Starbuck,  for  that  matter;  and  he's  in 
for  twenty  thousand,"  said  Shaw.  "And,  by  the 
way,  Billy  is  a  man  who  will  bear  watching.  He's 
hand-in-glove  with  Smith,  and  he's  onto  all  of 
our  little  crooks  and  turns.  I  heard  him  telling 
Smith  to-day  that  he  owed  it  to  the  company  to 
carry  a  gun." 

Stanton's  smile  showed  his  teeth. 

"I  wish  he  would;  carry  one  and  kill  some- 
body with  it.  Then  we'd  know  what  to  do  with 
him." 

The  spy  was  rolling  a  cigarette  and  his  half- 
closed  eyes  had  a  murderous  glint  in  them. 

"Me,  for  instance?"  he  inquired  cynically. 

"Anybody,"  said   Stanton   absently.     He  was 

231 


The  Real  Man 

going  over  the  list  of  stockholders  again  and  had 
scarcely  heard  what  Shaw  .had  said. 

"That  brings  us  down  to  business,  Mr.  Stan- 
ton," said  the  ex-railroad  clerk  slowly.  "I'm 
not  getting  money  enough  out  of  this  to  cover 
the  risk — my  risk." 

The  man  at  the  desk  looked  up  quickly. 

"What's  that  you  say?  By  heavens,  Shaw, 
have  I  got  to  send  you  over  the  road  before  you'll 
come  to  your  senses  ?  I've  spoken  once,  and  I'll 
do  it  just  this  one  time  more:  you  sing  small  if 
you  want  to  keep  out  of  jail  I" 

Shaw  had  lighted  his  cigarette  and  was  edging 
toward  the  door. 

"Not  this  trip,  Mr.  Stanton,"  he  said  coolly. 
"If  you've  got  me,  I've  got  you.  I  can  find  two 
men  who  will  go  into  court  and  swear  that  you 
paid  Pete  Simms  money  to  have  Smith  sand- 
bagged, that  day  out  at  Simms's  place  at  the  dam  ! 
I  may  have  to  go  to  jail,  as  you  say;  but  I'll  bet 
you  five  to  one  that  you'll  beat  me  to  it !"  And 
with  that  he  snapped  the  catch  on  the  locked 
door  and  went  away. 

Some  three  hours  after  this  rather  hostile 
clash  with  the  least  trustworthy,  but  by  far  the 
most  able,  of  his  henchmen,  Crawford  Stanton 
left    his    wife    chatting    comfortably    with    Miss 

232 


Broken  Threads 

Richlander  in  the  hotel  parlors  and  went  reluc- 
tantly to  keep  an  appointment  which  he  had 
been  dreading  ever  since  the  early  afternoon  hour 
when  a  wire  had  come  from  Copah  directing  him 
to  meet  the  "Nevada  Flyer"  upon  its  arrival  at 
Brewster.  The  public  knew  the  name  signed  to 
the  telegram  as  that  of  a  millionaire  statesman; 
but  Stanton  knew  it  best  as  the  name  of  a  hard 
and  not  over-scrupulous  master. 

The  train  was  whistling  for  the  station  when 
Stanton  descended  from  his  cab  and  hurried  down 
the  long  platform.  He  assumed  that  the  great 
personage  would  be  travelling  in  a  private  car 
which  would  be  coupled  to  the  rear  end  of  the 
"Flyer/'  and  his  guess  was  confirmed.  A  white- 
jacketed  porter  was  waiting  to  admit  him  to  the 
presence  when  the  train  came  to  a  stand,  and  as  he 
climbed  into  the  vestibule  of  the  luxurious  private 
car,  Stanton  got  what  comfort  he  could  out  of  the 
thought  that  the  interview  would  necessarily  be 
limited  by  the  ten  minutes'  engine-changing  stop 
of  the  fast  train. 

The  presence  chamber  was  the  open  compart- 
ment of  the  palace  on  wheels,  and  it  held  a  single 
occupant  when  Stanton  entered;  a  big-bodied 
man  with  bibulous  eyes  and  a  massive  square- 
angled  head  and  face,  a  face  in  which  the  car- 

233 


The  Real  Man 

toonists  emphasized  the  heavy  drooping  mustache 
and  the  ever-present  black  cigar  growing  out  of  it. 

"Hello,  Crawford,"  the  great  man  grunted, 
making  no  move  to  lift  his  huge  body  out  of  the 
padded  lounging-chair.     "You  got  my  wire?" 

"Yes,"  returned  the  promoter,  limiting  him- 
self to  the  one  word. 

"What's  the  matter  with  you  here  on  this  land 
deal  ?    Why  don't  you  get  action  ?" 

Stanton  tried  to  explain  as  fully  as  might  be, 
holding  in  view  the  necessity  for  haste.  The 
big  man  in  the  easy  chair  was  frowning  heavily 
when  the  explanation  was  finished. 

"And  you  say  this  one  man  has  blocked  the 
game  ?  Why  the  devil  don't  you  get  rid  of  him — 
buy  him,  or  run  him  off,  or  something  ? " 

"I  don't  believe  he  can  be  bought." 

"Well,  then,  chase  him  out.  We  can't  afford 
to  be  hung  up  this  way  indefinitely  by  every 
little  amateur  that  happens  to  come  along  and 
sit  in  the  game.  Get  action  and  do  something. 
From  what  you  say,  this  fellow  is  probably  some 
piker  who  has  left  his  country  for  his  country's 
good.  Get  the  detectives  after  him  and  run  him 
down." 

"That  will  take  time,  and  time  is  what  we 
haven't  got." 

234 


Broken  Threads 

The  big  man  pulled  himself  up  in  his  chair  and 
glared  savagely  at  the  protester. 

"Stanton,  you  make  me  tired — very  tired! 
You  know  what  we  have  at  stake  in  this  deal, 
and  thus  far  you're  the  only  man  in  it  who  hasn't 
made  good.  You've  had  all  the  help  you've 
asked  for,  and  all  the  money  you  wanted  to 
spend.  If  you've  lost  your  grip,  say  so  plainly, 
and  get  down  and  out.  We  don't  want  any 
'has-been'  on  this  job.  If  you  are  at  the  end 
of  your  resources " 

The  conductor's  shout  of  "All  aboard!"  domi- 
nated the  clamor  of  the  station  noises,  and  the 
air-brakes  were  singing  as  the  engineer  of  the 
changed  locomotives  tested  the  connections.  Stan- 
ton saw  his  chance  to  duck  and  took  it. 

"I  have  been  trying  to  stop  short  of  any- 
thing that  might  make  talk,"  he  said.  "This 
town  might  easily  be  made  too  hot  to  hold  us, 
and " 

"You're  speaking  for  yourself,  now,"  rapped 
out  the  tyrant.  "What  the  devil  do  we  care  for 
the  temperature  of  Brewster  ?  I've  only  one 
word  for  you,  Crawford:  you  get  busy  and  give 
us  results.  Skip  out,  now,  or  you'll  get  carried 
by.  And,  say;  let  me  have  a  wire  at  Los  Angeles, 
not  later  than  Thursday.    Get  that  ?" 

235 


The  Real  Man 

Stanton  got  it:  also,  he  escaped,  making  a 
flying  leap  from  the  moving  train.  At  the  cab 
rank  he  found  the  motor-cab  which  he  had  hired 
for  the  drive  down  from  the  hotel.  Climbing  in, 
he  gave  a  brittle  order  to  the  chauffeur.  Simul- 
taneously a  man  wearing  the  softest  of  Stetsons 
lounged  away  from  his  post  of  observation  under 
a  near-by  electric  pole  and  ran  across  the  railroad 
plaza  to  unhitch  and  mount  a  wiry  little  cow- 
pony.  Once  in  the  saddle,  however,  the  mounted 
man  did  not  hurry  his  horse.  Having  overheard 
Stanton's  order-giving,  there  was  no  need  to  keep 
the  motor-cab  in  sight  as  it  sputtered  through 
the  streets  and  out  upon  the  backgrounding  mesa, 
its  ill-smelling  course  ending  at  a  lonely  road- 
house  in  the  mesa  hills  on  the  Topaz  trail. 

When  the  hired  vehicle  came  to  a  stand  in 
front  of  the  lighted  bar-room  of  the  road-house, 
Stanton  gave  a  waiting  order  to  the  driver  and 
went  in.  Of  the  dog-faced  barkeeper  he  asked 
an  abrupt  question,  and  at  the  man's  jerk  of  a 
thumb  toward  the  rear,  the  promoter  passed  on 
and  entered  the  private  room  at  the  back. 

The  private  room  had  but  one  occupant — the 
man  Lanterby,  who  was  sitting  behind  a  round 
card-table  and  vainly  endeavoring  to  make  one 
of  the  pair  of  empty  whiskey-glasses  spin   in   a 

236 


Broken  Threads 

complete  circuit  about  a  black  bottle  standing 
on  the  table. 

Stanton  pulled  up  a  chair  and  sat  down,  and 
Lanterby  poured  libations  for  two  from  the  black 
bottle.  The  promoter,  ordinarily  as  abstemious 
as  a  Trappist,  drained  his  portion  at  a  gulp. 

"Well?"  he  snapped,  pushing  the  bottle  aside. 
"What  did  you  find  out?" 

"I  reckon  it  can  be  done,  if  it  has  to  be,"  was 
the  low-toned  reply. 

"Done  and  well  covered  up  ?" 

"Yep.  It'll  be  charged  up  to  the  high  water — 
maybe." 

"Is  the  river  still  rising?" 

"A  little  bit  higher  every  night  now.  That's 
the  way  it  comes  up.  The  snow  on  the  mountain 
melts  in  the  day  and  the  run-off  comes  in  the 
night." 

"You  can  handle  it  by  yourself,  can't  you?" 

"Me  and  Boogerfield  can." 

"All  right.  Get  everything  ready  and  wait  for 
the  word  from  me.  You  didn't  let  Pegleg  in  on 
it,  did  you?" 

"I  had  to.    We'd  have  to  work  from  his  joint." 

"That  was  a  bad  move.  Simms  would  sell  you 
out  if  anybody  wanted  to  buy.  He'd  sell  his  best 
friend,"  frowned  Stanton. 

237 


The  Real  Man 

Lanterby  showed  the  whites  of  his  eyes  and  a 
set  of  broken  teeth  in  a  wolfish  grin. 

"Pete  can't  run  fast  enough  to  sell  me  out," 
he  boasted.  "I'll  have  somethin'  in  my  clothes 
that'll  run  faster  than  he  can,  with  that  wooden 
leg  o'  his." 

Stanton  nodded  and  poured  himself  another 
drink — a  larger  one  than  the  first;  and  then 
thought  better  of  it  and  spilled  the  liquor  on 
the  floor. 

"That  will  do  for  the  dynamite  part  of  it.  It's 
a  last  resort,  of  course.  We  don't  want  to  have 
to  rebuild  the  dam,  and  I  have  one  more  string 
that  I  want  to  pull  first.  This  man  Smith:  I've 
got  a  pointer  on  him,  at  last.  Is  Boogerfield  still 
feeling  sore  about  the  man-handling  Smith  gave 
him?" 

"You  bet  your  life  he  is." 

"Good.  Keep  him  stirred  up  along  that  line." 
Stanton  got  up  and  looked  thirstily  at  the  bottle, 
but  let  it  alone.  "That's  all  for  to-night.  Stay 
out  of  sight  as  much  as  you  can,  and  go  easy  on 
the  whiskey.  I  may  not  come  here  again.  If  I 
don't,  I'll  send  you  one  of  two  words.  'Williams' 
will  mean  that  you're  to  strike  for  the  dam.  '  Jake ' 
will  mean  that  you  are  to  get  Boogerfield  fighting 
drunk  and  send  him  after  Smith.    Whichever  way 

238 


Broken  Threads 

it  comes  out,  you'll  find  the  money  where  I've 
said  it  will  be,  and  you  and  Boogerfield  had  better 
fade  away — and  take  Pegleg  with  you,  if  you 
can. 

The  hired  car  was  still  waiting  when  Stanton 
went  out  through  the  bar-room  and  gave  the 
driver  his  return  orders.  And,  because  the  night 
was  dark,  neither  of  the  two  at  the  car  saw  the 
man  in  the  soft  Stetson  straighten  himself  up 
from  his  crouching  place  under  the  back-room 
window  and  vanish  silently  in  the  gloom. 


239 


XVII 

A  Night  of  Fiascos 

SMITH  had  seen  nothing  of  Miss  Richlander 
during  the  day  of  the  Stanton  plottings, 
partly  because  there  was  a  forenoon  meeting  of 
the  High  Line  stockholders  called  for  the  purpose 
of  electing  him  secretary  and  treasurer  in  fact 
of  the  company,  and  partly  because  the  major 
portion  of  the  afternoon  was  spent  in  conference 
with  Williams  at  the  dam. 

The  work  of  construction  had  now  reached  its 
most  critical  stage,  and  Williams  was  driving  it 
strenuously.  Each  twenty-four  hours,  with  the 
recurring  night  rise  from  the  melting  snows,  the 
torrenting  river  reached  a  higher  water-mark, 
and  three  times  in  as  many  weeks  the  engineer 
had  changed  from  a  quick-setting  cement  to  a 
still  quicker,  time-saving  and  a  swift  piling-up 
of  the  great  dike  wall  being  now  the  prime 
necessities. 

Returning  from  the  dam  site  quite  late  in  the 
evening,    Smith    spent    a    hard-working    hour    or 

240 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

more  at  his  desk  in  the  Kinzie  Building  offices; 
and  it  was  here  that  Starbuck  found  him. 

"What?"  said  the  new  secretary,  looking  up 
from  his  work  when  Starbuck's  wiry  figure  loomed 
in  the  doorway,  "I  thought  you  were  once  more 
a  family  man,  and  had  cut  out  the  night  prowling." 

Starbuck  jack-knifed  himself  comfortably  in  a 
chair. 

"I  was.  But  the  little  girl's  run  away  again; 
gone  with  her  sister — Maxwell's  wife,  you  know — 
to  Denver  to  get  her  teeth  fixed;  and  I'm  foot- 
loose. Been  butting  in  a  little  on  your  game, 
this  evening,  just  to  be  doing.  How's  tricks  with 
you,  now  ?" 

"We're  strictly  in  the  fight,"  declared  Smith 
enthusiastically.  "We  closed  the  deal  to-day  for 
the  last  half-mile  of  the  main  ditch  right  of  way, 
which  puts  us  up  on  the  mesa  slope  above  the 
Escalante  Grant.  If  they  knock  us  out  now, 
they'll  have  to  do  it  with  dynamite." 

"Yes,"  said  the  ex-cow-man,  thoughtfully; 
"with  dynamite."  Then:  "How  is  Williams 
getting  along  ?" 

"Fine!  The  water  is  crawling  up  on  him  a 
little  every  night,  but  with  no  accidents,  he'll 
be  able  to  hold  the  flood  rise  when  it  comes.  The 
only  thing  that  worries  me  now  is  the  time  limit." 

241 


The  Real  Man 

"The  time  limit  ?"  echoed  Starbuck.  "What's 
that?" 

"It's  the  handicap  we  inherit  from  the  original 
company.  Certain  State  rights  to  the  water  were 
conveyed  in  the  old  charter,  on  condition  that 
the  project  should  be  completed,  or  at  least  be 
far  enough  along  to  turn  water  into  the  ditches, 
by  a  given  date.  This  time  limit,  which  carries 
over  from  Timanyoni  Ditch  to  Timanyoni  High 
Line,  expires  next  week.  We're  petitioning  for 
an  extension,  but  if  we  don't  get  it  we  shall  still 
be  able  to  back  the  water  up  so  that  it  will  flow 
into  the  lower  level  of  ditches  by  next  Thursday; 
that  is,  barring  accidents." 

"Yes;  with  no  accidents,"  mused  Starbuck. 
"Can't  get  shut  of  the  'if,'  no  way  nor  shape, 
can  we  ?  So  that's  why  the  Stanton  people  have 
been  fighting  so  wolfishly  for  delay,  is  it  ?  Wanted 
to  make  the  High  Line  lose  its  charter  ?  John, 
this  is  a  wicked,  wicked  world,  and  I  can  sympa- 
thize with  the  little  kiddie  who  said  he  was  going 
out  in  the  garden  to  eat  worms."  Then  he 
switched  abruptly.  "Where  did  you  corral  all 
those  good  looks  you  took  to  the  opera-house  last 
night,  John  ?" 

Smith's  laugh  was  strictly  perfunctory. 

"That  was  Miss  Verda  Richlander,  an  old 
242 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

friend  of  mine  from  back  home.  She  is  out 
here  with  her  father,  and  the  father  has  gone 
up  into  the  Topaz  country  to  buy  him  a  gold 
brick." 

"Not  in  the  Topaz,"  Starbuck  struck  in  loyally. 
"We  don't  make  the  bricks  up  there — not  the 
phony  kind.  But  let  that  go  and  tell  me  some- 
thing else.  A  while  back,  when  you  were  giving 
me  a  little  song  and  dance  about  the  colonel's 
daughter,  you  mentioned  another  woman — though 
not  by  name,  if  you  happen  to  recollect.  I  was 
just  wondering  if  this  Miss  Rich-people,  or  what- 
ever her  name  is,  might  be  the  other  one." 

Again  the  new  secretary  laughed — this  time 
without  embarrassment.  "  You've  called  the  turn, 
Billy.     She  is  the  other  one." 

"H'm;   chasing  you  up  ?  " 

"Oh,  no;  it  was  just  one  of  the  near-miracles. 
She  didn't  know  I  was  here,  and  I  had  no  hint 
that  she  was  coming." 

"I  didn't  know,"  commented  the  reformed  cow- 
boy. "Sometimes  when  you  think  it's  a  cold 
trail,  it's  a  warm  one;  and  then  again  when  you 
think  it's  warm,  it  fools  you." 

"Oh,  pshaw!"  scoffed  the  trail-maker,  "you 
make  me  weary,  Billy.  We  are  merely  good 
friends.     No  longer  ago  than  last  night  I  had  the 

243 


The  Real  Man 

strongest  possible  proof  of  Miss  Richlander's 
friendship." 

"Did,  eh?  All  right;  it's  your  roast;  not 
mine.  But  I'm  going  to  pull  one  chestnut  out  of 
the  fire  for  you,  even  if  I  do  get  my  fingers  burned. 
This  Miss  Rich-folks  has  had  only  one  day  here 
in  Brewster,  but  she's  used  it  in  getting  mighty 
chummy  with  the  Stantons.  Did  you  know 
that?" 

"What!"  ejaculated  Smith. 

"Jesso,"  smiled  Starbuck.  "She  had  her 
luncheon  with  'em  to-day,  and  for  an  hour  or  so 
this  evening  the  three  of  'em  sat  together  up  in 
the  Hophra  inside-veranda  parlor.  Does  that 
figure  as  news  to  you  ?" 

"It  does,"  said  Smith  simply;  and  he  added: 
"I  don't  understand  it." 

"Funny,"  remarked  the  ex-cow-man.  "It 
didn't  ball  me  up  for  more  than  a  minute  or  two. 
Stanton  fixed  it  some  way — because  he  needed 
to.  Tell  me  something,  John;  could  this  Miss 
Rich-garden  help  Stanton  out  in  any  of  his  little 
schemes,  if  she  took  a  notion?" 

Smith  turned  away  and  stared  at  the  blackened 
square  of  outer  darkness  lying  beyond  the  office 
window. 

"She  could,  Billy — but  she  won't,"  he  answered. 

244 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

"You  can  dig  up  your  last  dollar  and  bet  on 
that,  can  you  ?" 

"Yes,  I  think  I  can." 

"H'm;  that's  just  what  I  was  most  afraid 
of." 

"Don't  be  an  ass,  Billy." 

"I'm  trying  mighty  hard  not  to  be,  John,  but 
sometimes  the  ears  will  grow  on  the  best  of  us — 
in  spite  of  the  devil.  What  I  mean  is  this:  when 
a  woman  thinks  enough  of  a  man  to  keep  his 
secrets,  she's  mighty  likely  to  think  too  much  of 
him  to  keep  those  same  secrets  from  spreading 
themselves  on  the  bill-boards  when  the  pinch 
comes." 

"I'm  no  good  at  conundrums,"  said  Smith. 
"Put  it  in  plain  words." 

"So  I  will,"  snapped  Starbuck,  half  morosely. 
"Two  nights  ago,  when  you  were  telling  me  about 
this  Miss  Rich-acres,  you  said  there  was  nothing 
to  it,  and  I  said  you  never  could  tell,  when  there 
was  a  woman  in  it.  I  saw  you  two  when  you 
came  out  of  the  Hophra  dining-room  together 
last  night,  and  I  saw  the  look  in  that  girl's  eyes. 
Do  you  know  what  I  said  to  myself  right  then, 
John  ?  I  said:  'Oh,  you  little  girl  out  at  the  Hill- 
crest  ranch — good-by,  you!'  " 

Smith's  grin  was  half  antagonistic.  "You  are 
245 


The  Real  Man 

an  ass,  Billy/'  he  asserted.    "I  never  was  in  love 
with  Verda  Richlander,  nor  she  with  me." 

"Speak  for  yourself  and  let  it  hang  there, 
John.  You  can't  speak  for  the  woman — no  man 
ever  can.  What  I'm  hoping  now  is  that  she 
doesn't  know  anything  about  you  that  Stanton 
could  make  use  of." 

Again  the  High  Line's  new  secretary  turned 
to  stare  at  the  black  backgrounded  window. 

"You  mean  that  she  might  hear  of— of  Miss 
Corona?"  he  suggested. 

"You've  roped  it  down,  at  last,"  said  the 
friendly  enemy.  "Stanton'll  tell  her— he'll  tell 
her  anything  and  everything  that  might  make 
her  turn  loose  any  little  bit  of  information  she 
may  have  about  you.  As  I  said  a  minute  ago,  I'm 
hoping  she  hasn't  got  anything  on  you,  John." 

Smith  was  still  facing  the  window  when  he 
replied.  "I'm  sorry  to  have  to  disappoint  you, 
Starbuck.  What  Miss  Richlander  could  do  to 
me,  if  she  chooses,  would  be  good  and  plenty." 

The  ex-cowboy  mine  owner  drew  a  long  breath 
and  felt  for  his  tobacco-sack  and  rice-paper. 

"All  of  which  opens  up  more  talk  trails,"  he 
said  thoughtfully.  "Since  you  wouldn't  try  to 
take  care  of  yourself,  and  since  your  neck  happens 
to  be  the  most  valuable  asset  Timanyoni  High 

246 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

Line  has,  just  at  present,  I've  been  butting  in, 
as  I  told  you.  Listen  to  my  tale  of  woe,  if  you 
haven't  anything  better  to  do.  Besides  the  Miss 
Rich-ranches  episode  there  are  a  couple  of  others. 
Want  to  hear  about  'em?" 

Smith  nodded. 

"All  right.  A  little  while  past  dinner  this 
evening,  Stanton  had  a  hurry  call  to  meet  the 
'Nevada  Flyer/  Tailed  onto  the  train  there  was 
a  private  luxury  car,  and  in  the  private  car  sat 
a  gentleman  whose  face  you've  seen  plenty  of 
times  in  the  political  cartoons,  usually  with  cuss- 
words  under  it.  He  is  one  of  Stanton's  bosses; 
and  Stanton  was  in  for  a  wigging — and  got  it. 
I  couldn't  hear,  but  I  could  see — through  the 
car  window.  He  had  Stanton  standing  on  one 
foot  before  the  train  pulled  out  and  let  Crawford 
make  his  get-away.  You  guess,  and  I'll  guess, 
and  we'll  both  say  it  was  about  this  Escalante 
snap  which  is  aiming  to  be  known  as  the  Es- 
calante fizzle.     Ain't  it  the  truth  ?" 

Again  Smith  nodded,  and  said:    "Go  on." 

"After  Number  Five  had  gone,  Stanton  broke 
for  his  auto-cab,  looking  like  he  could  bite  a  nail 
in  two.  I  happened  to  hear  the  order  he  gave  the 
shover,  and  I  had  my  cayuse  hitched  over  at  Bob 
Sharkey's  joint.    Naturally,  I  ambled  along  after 

247 


The  Real  Man 

Crawford,  and  while  I  didn't  beat  him  to  it,  I 
got  there  soon  enough.  It  was  out  at  Jeff  Barton's 
road-house  on  the  Topaz  trail,  and  Stanton  was 
shut  up  in  the  back  room  with  a  sort  of  tin-horn 
'bad  man'  named  Lanterby." 

"You  listened?"  said  Smith,  still  without 
eagerness. 

"Right  you  are.  And  they  fooled  me.  Two 
schemes  were  on  tap;  one  pointing  at  Williams 
and  the  dam,  and  the  other  at  you.  These  were 
both  Mast  resorts';  Stanton  said  he  had  one  more 
string  to  pull  first.  If  that  broke — well,  I've  said 
it  half  a  dozen  times  already,  John:  you'll  either 
have  to  hire  a  body-guard  or  go  heeled.  I'm 
telling  you  right  here  and  now,  that  bunch  is 
going  to  get  you,  even  if  it  costs  money !" 

"You  say  Stanton  said  he  had  one  more  string 
to  pull:   he  didn't  give  it  a  name,  did  he  ?" 

"No,  but  I've  got  a  notion  of  my  own,"  was 
the  ready  answer.  "He's  trying  to  get  next  to 
you  through  the  women,  with  this  Miss  Rich- 
pasture  for  his  can-opener.  But  when  every- 
thing else  fails,  he  is  to  send  a  password  to  Lan- 
terby, one  of  two  passwords.  'Williams'  means 
dynamite  and  the  dam:  'Jake'  means  the  re- 
moval from  the  map  of  a  fellow  named  Smith. 
Nice  prospect,  isn't  it?" 

248 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

Smith  was  jabbing  his  paper-knife  absently 
into  the  desk-blotter.  "And  yet  we  go  on  calling 
this  a  civilized  country!"  he  said  meditatively. 
Then  with  a  sudden  change  of  front:  "I'm  in 
this  fight  to  stay  until  I  win  out  or  die  out,  Billy; 
you  know  that.  As  I  have  said,  Miss  Verda  can 
kill  me  off  if  she  chooses  to;  but  she  won't  choose 
to.  Now  let's  get  to  work.  It's  pretty  late  to 
rout  a  justice  of  the  peace  out  of  bed  to  issue  a 
warrant  for  us,  but  we'll  do  it.  Then  we'll  go 
after  Lanterby  and  make  him  turn  state's  evi- 
dence.    Come  on;   let's  get  busy." 

But  Starbuck,  reaching  softly  for  a  chair- 
righting  handhold  upon  Smith's  desk,  made  no 
reply.  Instead,  he  snapped  his  lithe  body  out  of 
the  chair  and  launched  it  in  a  sudden  tiger-spring 
at  the  door.  To  Smith's  astonishment  the  door, 
which  should  have  been  latched,  came  in  at  Star- 
buck's  wrenching  jerk  of  the  knob,  bringing  with 
it,  hatless,  and  with  the  breath  startled  out  of 
him,  the  new  stenographer,  Shaw. 

"There's  your  state's  evidence,"  said  Star- 
buck  grimly,  pushing  the  half-dazed  door-listener 
into  a  chair.  "Just  put  the  auger  a  couple  of 
inches  into  this  fellow  and  see  what  you  can  find." 

Measured  by  any  standard  of  human  discom- 
fort, Richard  Shaw  had  an  exceedingly  bad  quarter 

249 


The  Real  Man 

of  an  hour  to  worry  through  when  Smith  and 
Starbuck  applied  the  thumbscrews  and  sought 
by  every  means  known  to  modern  inquisitorial 
methods  to  force  a  confession  out  of  him. 

Caring  nothing  for  loyalty  to  the  man  who  was 
paying  him,  Shaw  had,  nevertheless,  a  highly 
developed  anxiety  for  his  own  welfare;  and 
knowing  the  dangerous  ground  upon  which  he 
stood,  he  evaded  and  shuffled  and  prevaricated 
under  the  charges  and  questionings  until  it  be- 
came apparent  to  both  of  his  inquisitors  that 
nothing  short  of  bribery  or  physical  torture  would 
get  the  truth  out  of  him.  Smith  was  not  willing 
to  offer  the  bribe,  and  since  the  literal  thumb- 
screws were  out  of  the  question,  Shaw  was  locked 
into  one  of  the  vacant  rooms  across  the  corridor 
until  his  captors  could  determine  what  was  to  be 
done  with  him. 

"That  is  one  time  when  I  fired  and  missed  the 
whole  side  of  the  barn,',  Starbuck  admitted,  when 
Shaw  had  been  remanded  to  the  makeshift  cell 
across  the  hall.  "I  know  that  fellow  is  on  Stan- 
ton's pay-roll;  and  it's  reasonably  certain  that  he 
got  his  job  with  you  so  that  he  could  keep  cases 
on  you.  But  we  can't  prove  anything  that  we 
say,  so  long  as  he  refuses  to  talk." 

"No,"  Smith  agreed.  "I  can  discharge  him, 
250 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

and  that's  about  all  that  can  be  done  with  him. 
We  can't  even  tax  him  with  listening.  You 
heard  what  he  said — that  he  saw  the  light  up 
here  from  the  street,  and  came  up  to  see  if  I 
didn't  need  him." 

"He  is  a  pretty  smooth  article,"  said  Starbuck 
reflectively.  "He  used  to  be  a  clerk  in  Maxwell's 
railroad  office,  and  he  was  mixed  up  in  some  kind 
of  crookedness,  I  don't  remember  just  what." 

Smith  caught  quickly  at  the  suggestion. 

"Wait  a  minute,  Billy,"  he  broke  in;  and  then: 
"There's  no  doubt  in  your  mind  that  he's  a  spy  ?" 

"Sure,  he  is,"  was  the  prompt  rejoinder. 

"I  was  just  thinking — he  has  heard  what  was 
said  here  to-night — which  is  enough  to  give  Stan- 
ton a  pretty  good  chance  to  outfigure  us  again." 

"Right  you  are." 

"In  which  case  it  would  be  little  short  of  idiotic 
in  us  to  turn  him  loose.  We've  got  to  hold  him, 
proof  or  no  proof.  Where  would  we  be  apt  to 
catch  Maxwell  at  this  time  of  night  ?" 

"At  home  and  in  bed,  I  reckon." 

"Call  him  up  on  the  'phone  and  state  the  case 
briefly.  Tell  him  if  he  has  any  nip  on  Shaw 
that  would  warrant  us  in  turning  him  over  to  the 
sheriff,  we'd  like  to  know  it." 

"You're  getting  the  range  now,"  laughed  the 

251 


The  Real  Man 

ex-cow-man,  and  instead  of  using  the  desk  set, 
he  went  to  shut  himself  into  the  sound-proof 
telephone-closet. 

When  he  emerged  a  few  minutes  later  he  was 
grinning  exultantly.  "That  was  sure  a  smooth 
one  of  yours,  John.  Dick  gave  me  the  facts. 
Shaw's  a  thief;  but  he  has  a  sick  sister  on  his 
hands — or  said  he  had — and  the  railroad  didn't 
prosecute.  Dick  says  for  us  to  jug  him  to-night 
and  to-morrow  morning  he'll  swear  out  the  neces- 
sary papers." 

"Good.  We'll  do  that  first;  and  then  we'll 
go  after  this  fellow  Lanterby.  I  want  to  get 
Stanton  where  I  can  pinch  him,  Billy;  no,  there's 
nothing  personal  about  it;  but  when  a  great 
corporation  like  the  Escalante  Land  Company 
gets  down  to  plain  anarchy  and  dynamiting,  it's 
time  to  make  somebody  sweat  for  it.  Let's  go 
and  get  Shaw." 

Together  they  went  across  the  corridor,  and 
Smith  unlocked  the  door  of  the  disused  room. 
The  light  switch  was  on  the  door-jamb  and  Star- 
buck  found  and  pressed  the  button.  The  single 
incandescent  bulb  hanging  from  the  ceiling  sprang 
alive — and  showed  the  two  men  at  the  door  an 
empty  room  and  an  open  window.  The  bird  had 
flown. 

252 


A  Night  of  Fiascos 

Starbuck  was  grinning  again  when  he  went  to 
look  out  of  the  window.  The  roof  of  the  ad- 
joining building  was  only  a  few  feet  below  the 
sill  level,  and  there  was  a  convenient  fire-escape 
ladder  leading  to  the  ground. 

"It's  us  for  that  road-house  out  on  the  Topaz 
trail  before  the  news  gets  around  to  Stanton  and 
Lanterby,"  he  said  definitely;  and  they  lost  no 
time  in  securing  an  auto  for  the  dash. 

But  that,  too,  proved  to  be  a  fiasco.  When 
they  reached  Barton's  all-night  place  on  the  hill 
road,  the  bar  was  still  open  and  a  card  game  was 
running  in  an  up-stairs  room.  Starbuck  did  the 
necessary  cross-questioning  of  the  dog-faced  bar- 
tender. 

"You  know  me,  Pug,  and  what  I  can  do  to 
you  if  I  have  to.  We  want  Hank  Lanterby. 
Pitch  out  and  show  us  where." 

The  barkeeper  threw  up  one  hand  as  if  he  were 
warding  off  a  blow. 

"You  c'd  have  him  in  a  holy  minute,  for  all 
o'  me,  Billy;  you  sure  could,"  he  protested.  "But 
he's  gone." 

"On  the  level?"  snapped  Starbuck. 

"That's  straight;  I  wouldn't  lie  to  you,  Billy. 
Telephone  call  came  from  town  a  little  spell  ago, 
and  I  got  Hank  outa  bed  t'  answer  it.    He  borra'd 

253 


The  Real  Man 

Barton's  mare  an'  faded  inside  of  a  pair  o* 
minutes." 

"Which  way?"  demanded  the  questioner. 

"T  the  hills;  leastways  he  ain't  headin'  fr 
town  when  he  breaks  from  here." 

Starbuck  turned  to  Smith  with  a  wry  smile. 

"Shaw  beat  us  to  it  and  he  scores  on  us,"  he 
said.  "We  may  as  well  hike  back,  'phone  Wil- 
liams to  keep  his  eye  on  things  up  at  the  dam, 
and  go  to  bed.  There'll  be  nothing  more  doing 
to-night." 


54 


XVIII 

A  Chance  to  Hedge 

WITH  all  things  moving  favorably  for 
Timanyoni  High  Line  up  to  the  night 
of  fiascos,  the  battle  for  the  great  water-right 
seemed  to  take  a  sudden  slant  against  the  local 
promoters,  after  the  failure  to  cripple  Stanton 
by  the  attempt  to  suppress  two  of  his  subor- 
dinates. Early  the  next  day  there  were  panicky 
rumors  in  the  air,  all  pointing  to  a  possible 
eleventh-hour  failure  of  the  local  enterprise, 
and  none  of  them  traceable  to  any  definite  start- 
ing-point. 

One  of  the  stories  was  to  the  effect  that  the 
Timanyoni  dam  had  faulty  foundations  and  that 
the  haste  in  building  had  added  to  its  insecurity, 
By  noon  bets  were  freely  offered  in  the  pool- 
rooms that  the  dam  would  never  stand  its  first 
filling;  and  on  the  heels  of  this  came  clamorous 
court  petitions  from  ranch  owners  below  the  dam 
site,  setting  forth  the  flood  dangers  to  which  they 

255 


The  Real  Man 

were  exposed  and  praying  for  an  injunction  to 
stop  the  work. 

That  this  was  a  new  move  on  Stanton's  part, 
neither  Smith  nor  Stillings  questioned  for  a  mo- 
ment; but  they  had  no  sooner  got  the  nervous 
ranchmen  pacified  by  giving  an  indemnity  bond 
for  any  damage  that  might  be  done,  before  it 
became  evident  that  the  rumors  were  having 
another  and  still  more  serious  effect.  It  was  a 
little  past  one  o'clock  when  Kinzie  sent  up-stairs 
for  Smith,  and  Smith  wondered  why,  with  the 
telephone  at  his  elbow,  the  banker  had  sent  the 
summons  by  the  janitor. 

When  the  newly  elected  secretary  had  himself 
shot  down  the  elevator,  he  was  moved  to  wonder 
again  at  the  number  of  people  who  were  waiting 
to  see  the  president.  The  anteroom  was  crowded 
with  them;  and  when  the  janitor  led  him  around 
through  the  working  room  of  the  bank  to  come 
at  the  inside  door  to  Kinzie's  room,  Smith  thought 
the  detour  was  made  merely  to  dodge  the  waiting 
throng. 

There  was  a  crude  surprise  lying  in  wait  for 
Smith  when  the  door  of  the  president's  room 
swung  open  to  admit  him.  Sitting  at  ease  on 
Kinzie's  big  leather-covered  lounge,  with  a  huge 
book  of  engraving  samples  on  his  knees,  was  a 

256 


A  Chance  to  Hedge 

round-bodied  man  with  a  face  like  a  good-natured 
full  moon.  Instantly  he  tossed  the  book  aside 
and  sprang  up. 

"Why,  Montague!"  he  burst  out,  "if  this 
doesn't  beat  the  band  !  Is  it  really  you,  or  only 
your  remarkably  healthy-looking  ghost  ?  By 
George!  but  I'm  glad  to  see  you!" 

Smith  shook  hands  with  Debritt,  and  if  the 
salesman's  hearty  greeting  was  not  returned  in 
kind,  the  lack  was  due  more  to  the  turmoil  of 
emotions  he  had  stirred  up  than  to  any  studied 
coolness  on  the  part  of  the  trapped  fugitive. 
Fortunately,  the  salesman  had  finished  showing 
Kinzie  his  samples  and  was  ready  to  go,  so  there 
was  no  time  for  any  awkward  revelations. 

"I'm  at  the  Hophra,  for  just  a  little  while, 
Montague,  and  you  must  look  me  up,"  was 
Debritt's  parting  admonition;  and  Smith  was 
searching  the  salesman's  eyes  keenly  for  the 
accusation  which  ought  to  be  in  them;  search- 
ing and  failing  to  find  it. 

"Yes;  I'll  look  you  up,  of  course,  Boswell. 
I'm  at  the  Hophra,  myself,"  he  returned  me- 
chanically; and  the  next  moment  he  was  alone 
with  Kinzie. 

"You  sent  for  me?"  he  said  to  the  banker; 
and  Kinzie  pointed  to  a  chair. 

257 


The  Real  Man 

"Yes;  sit  down  and  tell  me  what  has  broken 
loose.  I've  been  trying  to  get  Baldwin  or  Wil- 
liams on  the  wire — they're  both  at  the  dam,  I 
understand — but  the  'phone  seems  to  be  out  of 
service.  What  has  gone  wrong  with  you  people  ?" 
Smith  spread  his  hands.  "We  were  never  in 
better  shape  to  win  out  than  we  are  at  this  mo- 
ment, Mr.  Kinzie.  This  little  flurry  about  newer 
and  bigger  damage  suits  to  be  brought  by  the 
valley  truck-gardeners  doesn't  amount  to  any- 
thing." 

"I  know  all  about  that,"  said  the  president, 
with  a  touch  of  impatience.  "But  there  is  a 
screw  loose  somewhere.  How  about  that  time 
limit  in  your  charter  ?  Are  you  going  to  get 
water  into  the  ditches  within  your  charter  restric- 
tions?" 

"We  shall  clear  the  law,  all  right,  within  the 
limit,"  was  the  prompt  reply.  But  the  banker  was 
still  unsatisfied. 

"Did  you  notice  that  roomful  of  people  out 
there  waiting  to  see  me?"  he  asked.  "They  are 
High  Line  investors,  a  good  many  of  them,  and 
they  are  waiting  for  a  chance  to  ask  me  if  they 
hadn't  better  get  rid  of  their  stock  for  whatever 
it  will  bring.  That's  why  I  sent  for  you.  I  want 
to  know  what's  happened.  And  this  time,  Mr. 
Smith,  I  want  the  truth." 

258 


A  Chance  to  Hedge 

Smith  accepted  the  implied  challenge  promptly, 
though  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  a  net  of  some 
kind  was  drawing  around  him. 

"Meaning  that  I  haven't  been  telling  you  the 
truth,  heretofore  ?"  he  asked  hardily. 

"Meaning  just  that,"  responded  the  banker. 

"Name  the  time  and  place,  if  you  please." 

"It  was  the  first  time  you  came  here — with 
Baldwin." 

"No,"  said  Smith.  "I  gave  you  nothing  but 
straight  facts  at  that  time,  Mr.  Kinzie.  It  was 
your  own  deductions  that  were  at  fault.  You 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  I  was  here  as  the 
representative  of  Eastern  capital,  and  I  neither 
denied  nor  affirmed.  But  that  is  neither  here 
nor  there.  We  have  made  good  in  the  financing, 
and,  incidentally,  we've  helped  the  bank.  You 
have  no  kick  coming." 

Kinzie  wheeled  in  his  chair  and  pointed  an 
accusing  finger  at  Smith. 

"Mr.  Smith,  before  we  do  any  more  business 
together,  I  want  to  know  who  you  are  and  where 
you  come  from.  If  you  can't  answer  a  few  plain 
questions  I  shall  draw  my  own  inferences." 

Smith  leaped  up  and  towered  over  the  thick- 
set elderly  man  in  the  pivot-chair. 

"Mr.  Kinzie,  do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  what 
you   are  ?     You're   a   trimmer — a   fence-climber ! 

259 


The  Real  Man 

Do  you  suppose  I  don't  know  what  has  happened  ? 
Stanton  has  started  this  new  scare,  and  he  has 
been  here  with  you !  You've  thought  it  all  over, 
and  now  you  want  to  welsh  and  go  over  to  what 
you  think  is  going  to  be  the  winning  side !  Do 
it,  if  you  feel  like  it — and  I'll  transfer  our  account 
to  the  little  Savings  concern  up-town!" 

There  was  fire  in  his  eye  and  hot  wrath  in  his 
tone;  and  once  more  Kinzie  found  his  conclusions 
warping. 

"Oh,  don't  fly  off  the  handle  so  brashly,  young 
man,"  he  protested.  "You've  been  in  the  bank- 
ing business,  yourself — you  needn't  deny  it — 
and  you  know  what  a  banker's  first  care  should 
be.  Sit  down  again  and  let's  thresh  this  thing 
out.    I  don't  want  to  have  to  drop  you." 

Being  fairly  at  bay,  with  Debritt  in  town  and 
Josiah  Richlander  due  to  come  back  to  Brewster 
at  any  moment,  Smith  put  his  back  to  the  wall 
and  ignored  the  chair. 

"You  are  at  liberty  to  do  anything  you  see  fit, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  he  rapped  out,  "and 
whatever  you  do,  I'll  try  to  hand  it  back  to  you, 
with  interest." 

"That  is  good  strong  talk,"  retorted  the  banker, 
"but  it  doesn't  tell  me  who  you  are,  or  why  you 
are  so  evidently   anxious  to   forget   your   past, 

260 


A  Chance  to  Hedge 

Mr.  Smith.  I'm  not  asking  much,  if  you'll  stop 
to  consider.  And  you'll  give  me  credit  for  being 
fair  and  aboveboard  with  you.  I  might  have 
held  that  engraving  salesman  and  questioned 
him;    he  knows  you — knows  your  other  name." 

Smith  put  the  entire  matter  aside  with  an 
impatient  gesture.  "Leave  my  past  record  out 
of  it,  if  you  please,  Mr.  Kinzie.  At  the  present 
moment  I  am  the  financial  head  of  Timanyoni 
High  Line.  What  I  want  to  know  is  this:  do 
you  continue  to  stand  with  us  ?  or  do  you  in- 
sist upon  the  privilege  of  seesawing  every  time 
Stanton  turns  up  with  a  fresh  scare  ?  Let  me 
have  it,  yes  or  no;  and  then  I  shall  know  what 
to  do." 

The  gray-haired  man  in  the  big  chair  took  time 
to  think  about  it,  pursing  his  lips  and  making  a 
quick-set  hedge  of  his  cropped  mustache.  In 
the  end  he  capitulated. 

"I  don't  want  to  break  with  you — or  with 
Dexter  Baldwin,"  he  said,  at  length.  "But  I'm 
going  to  talk  straight  to  you.  Your  little  local 
crowd  of  ranchmen  and  mining  men  will  never 
be  allowed  to  hold  that  dam  and  your  ditch 
right  of  way;    never  in  this  world,  Smith." 

"If  you  are  our  friend,  you'll  tell  us  why," 
Smith  came  back  smartly. 

261 


The  Real  Man 

"Because  you  have  got  too  big  a  crowd  to 
fight;  a  crowd  that  can  spend  millions  to  your 
hundreds.  I  didn't  know  until  to-day  who  was 
behind  Stanton,  though  I  had  made  my  own  guess. 
You  mustn't  be  foolish,  and  you  mustn't  pull 
Dexter  Baldwin  in  over  his  head — which  is  what 
you  are  doing  now." 

Smith  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets  and 
looked  away. 

"What  do  you  advise,  Mr.  Kinzie?"  he  asked. 

"Just  this.  At  the  present  moment  you  seem 
to  have  a  strangle-hold  on  the  New  York  people 
that  it  will  take  a  good  bit  of  money  to  break. 
They'll  break  it,  never  fear.  A  Scotch  terrier 
may  be  the  bravest  little  dog  that  ever  barked, 
but  he  can't  fight  a  mastiff  with  any  hope  of 
saving  his  life.  But  there  is  still  a  chance  for  a 
compromise.  Turn  this  muddle  of  yours  over 
to  me  and  let  me  make  terms  with  the  New 
Yorkers.  I'll  come  as  near  to  getting  par  for 
you  as  I  can." 

Smith,  still  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  took 
a  turn  across  the  room.  It  was  a  sharp  tempta- 
tion. No  one  knew  better  than  he  what  it  would 
mean  to  be  involved  in  a  long  fight,  with  huge 
capital  on  one  side  and  only  justice  and  a  modest 
bank  balance  on  the  other.     To  continue  would 

262 


A  Chance  to  Hedge 

be  to  leave  Colonel  Baldwin  and  Maxwell  and 
Starbuck  and  their  local  following  a  legacy  of 
strife  and  shrewd  battlings.  He  knew  that 
Kinzie's  offer  was  made  in  good  faith.  It  was 
most  probably  based  on  a  tentative  proposal  from 
Stanton,  who,  in  turn,  spoke  for  the  great  syndi- 
cate. By  letting  go  he  might  get  the  local  in- 
vestors out  whole,  or  possibly  with  some  small 
profit. 

Against  the  acceptance  of  this  alternative  every 
fibre  of  the  new-found  manhood  in  him  rose  up 
in  stubborn  protest.  Had  it  indeed  come  to  a 
pass  at  which  mere  money  could  dominate  and 
dictate,  rob,  steal,  oppress,  and  ride  roughshod 
over  all  opposition  ?  Smith  asked  himself  the 
question,  and  figured  the  big  Missouri  colonel's 
magnificent  anger  if  it  should  be  asked  of  him. 
That  thought  and  another — the  thought  of  what 
Corona  would  say  and  think  if  he  should  sur- 
render— turned  the  scale. 

"No,  Mr.  Kinzie;  we'll  not  compromise  while 
I  have  anything  to  say  about  it;  we'll  fight  it  to 
a  finish,"  he  said  abruptly;  and  with  that  he  went 
out  through  the  crowded  anteroom  and  so  back 
to  his  desk  in  the  up-stairs  offices. 


263 


XIX 

Two  Women 

FOR  one  day  and  yet  another  after  the  mina- 
tory interview  with  David  Kinzie,  Smith 
fought  mechanically,  developing  the  machine- 
like doggedness  of  the  soldier  who  sees  the  battle 
going  irresistibly  against  him  and  still  smites  on 
in  sheer  desperation. 

As  if  the  night  of  fiascos  had  been  the  turning- 
point,  he  saw  the  carefully  built  reorganization 
structure,  reared  by  his  own  efforts  upon  the 
foundation  laid  by  Colonel  Baldwin  and  his  ranch- 
men associates,  falling  to  pieces.  In  spite  of  all 
he  could  do,  the  panic  of  stock-selling  continued; 
the  city  council,  alarmed  by  the  persistent  story 
of  the  unsafety  of  the  dam,  was  threatening 
to  cancel  the  lighting  contract  with  Timanyoni 
High  Line;  and  Kinzie,  though  he  was  doing 
nothing  openly,  had  caused  the  word  about  the 
proposed  compromise  with  the  Escalante  people 
to  be  passed  far  and  wide  among  the  Timanyoni 
stockholders,  together  with   the  intimation  that 

264 


Two  Women 

disaster  could  be  averted  now  only  by  prompt 
action  and  the  swift  effacement  of  their  rule- 
or-ruin  secretary  and  treasurer. 

"They're  after  you,  John,"  was  the  way  the 
colonel  put  it  at  the  close  of  the  second  day  of 
back-slippings.  "They  say  you're  fiddlin'  while 
Rome's  a-burnin'.  Maybe  you  know  what  they 
mean  by  that;    I  don't." 

Smith  did  know.  During  the  two  days  of 
stress,  Miss  Verda  had  been  very  exacting.  There 
had  been  another  night  at  the  theatre  and  much 
time-killing  after  meals  in  the  parlors  of  the 
Hophra  House.  Worse  still,  there  had  been  a 
daylight  auto  trip  about  town  and  up  to  the  dam. 
The  victim  was  writhing  miserably  under  the 
price-paying,  but  there  seemed  to  be  no  help  for  it. 
With  Kinzie  and  Stanton  working  together,  with 
Debritt  gone  only  as  far  as  Red  Butte  and  promis- 
ing to  return,  and  with  Josiah  Richlander  still 
within  easy  reach  at  the  Topaz  mines,  he  stood  in 
hourly  peril  of  the  explosion,  and  a  single  written 
line  from  Verda  to  her  father  would  light  the 
match.  Smith  could  find  no  word  bitter  enough 
to  fitly  characterize  the  depths  into  which  he  had 
sunk.  It  was  the  newest  phase  of  the  meta- 
morphosis. Since  the  night  of  Verda  Richlander's 
arrival  in  Brewster,  he  had  not  seen  Corona;  he 

265 


The  Real  Man 

was  telling  himself  that  he  had  forfeited  the  right 
to  see  her.  Out  of  the  chaotic  wreck  of  things 
but  one  driving  motive  had  survived,  and  it  had 
grown  to  the  stature  of  an  obsession:  the  determi- 
nation to  wring  victory  out  of  defeat  for  Timan- 
yoni  High  Line;  to  fall,  if  he  must  fall,  fighting  to 
the  last  gasp  and  with  his  face  to  the  enemy. 

"I  know,"  he  said,  replying,  after  the  reflective 
pause,  to  the  charge  passed  on  by  Colonel  Dexter. 
"There  is  a  friend  of  mine  here  from  the  East, 
and  I  have  been  obliged  to  show  her  some  atten- 
tion, so  they  say  I  am  neglecting  my  job.  They 
are  also  talking  it  around  that  I  am  your  Jonah, 
and  saying  that  your  only  hope  is  to  pitch  me 
overboard. " 

"That's  Dave  Kinzie,"  growled  the  Missourian. 
"He  seems  to  have  it  in  for  you,  some  way.  He 
was  trying  to  tell  me  this  afternoon  that  I  ought 
not  to  take  you  out  to  the  ranch  any  more  until 
you  loosen  up  and  tell  us  where  you  came  from. 
I  told  him  to  go  and  soak  his  addled  old  head  in 
a  bucket  of  water  I" 

"Nevertheless,  he  was  right,"  Smith  returned 
gloomily.  Then:  "I  am  about  at  the  end  of  my 
rope,  Colonel — the  rope  I  warned  you  about  when 
you  brought  me  here  and  put  me  into  the  saddle; 
and  I'm  trying  desperately  to  hang  on  until  my 

266 


Two  Women 

job's  done.  When  it  is  done,  when  Timanyoni 
High  Line  can  stand  fairly  on  its  own  feet  and 
fight  its  own  battles,  I'm  gone." 

"Oh,  no,  you're  not,"  denied  the  ranchman- 
president  in  generous  protest.  "I  don't  know — 
you've  never  told  us — what  sort  of  a  kettle  of 
hot  water  you've  got  into,  but  you  have  made  a 
few  solid  friends  here  in  the  Timanyoni,  John, 
and  they  are  going  to  stand  by  you.  And — just 
to  show  Dave  Kinzie  that  nobody  cares  a  whoop 
for  what  he  says — you  come  on  out  home  with 
me  to-night  and  get  away  from  this  muddle  for  a 
few  minutes.  It'll  do  you  a  heap  of  good;  you 
know  it  always  does." 

Smith  shook  his  head  reluctantly  but  firmly. 

"Never  again,  Colonel.  It  can  only  be  a  matter 
of  a  few  days  now,  and  I'm  not  going  to  pull  you, 
and  your  wife  and  daughter,  into  the  limelight 
if  I  can  help  it." 

Colonel  Dexter  got  out  of  his  chair  and  walked 
to  the  office  window.  When  he  came  back  it 
was  to  say:  "Are  they  sure-enough  chasing  you, 
John  ? — for  something  that  you  have  done  ?  Is 
that  what  you're  trying  to  tell  me  ?" 

"That  is  it — and  they  are  nearly  here.  Now 
you  know  at  least  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  can't 
go  with  you  to-night." 

267 


The  Real  Man 

"I'll  be  shot  if  I  do!"  stormed  the  generous 
one.     "I  promised  the  Missus  I'd  bring  you." 

"You  must  make  my  excuses  to  her;  and  to 
Corona  you  may  say  that  I  am  once  more  carry- 
ing a  gun.     She  will  understand." 

"Which  means,  I  take  it,  that  you've  been 
telling  Corry  more  than  you've  told  the  rest  of 
us.  That  brings  on  more  talk,  John.  I  haven't 
said  a  word  before,  have  I  ?" 

"No." 

"Well,  I'm  going  to  say  it  now:  I've  got 
only  just  one  daughter  in  the  wide,  wide  world, 
John/' 

Smith  stood  up  and  put  his  hands  behind  him, 
facing  the  older  man  squarely. 

"Colonel,  I'd  give  ten  years  of  my  life,  this 
minute,  if  I  might  go  with  you  to  Hillcrest  this 
evening  and  tell  Corona  what  I  have  been  want- 
ing to  tell  her  ever  since  I  have  come  to  know 
what  her  love  might  make  of  me.  The  fact  that 
I  can't  do  it  is  the  bitterest  thing  I  have  ever  had 
to  face,  or  can  ever  be  made  to  face." 

Colonel  Baldwin  fell  back  into  his  swing-chair 
and  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets. 

"It  beats  the  Dutch  how  things  tangle  them- 
selves up  for  us  poor  mortals  every  little  so- 
while,"  he  commented,  after  a  frowning  pause. 

268 


Two  Women 

And  then:  "You  haven't  said  anything  like  that 
to  Corry,  have  you  ?" 

"No." 

"That  was  white,  anyway.  And  now  I  sup- 
pose the  other  woman — this  Miss  Rich-some- 
thing-or-other  over  at  the  hotel — has  come  and 
dug  you  up  and  got  you  on  the  end  of  her  trail- 
rope.  That's  the  way  it  goes  when  a  man  mixes 
and  mingles  too  much.     You  never  can  tell " 

"Hold  on,"  Smith  interposed.  "Whatever  else 
I  may  be,  I'm  not  that  kind  of  a  scoundrel. 
I  don't  owe  Miss  Richlander  anything  that  I 
can't  pay  without  doing  injustice  to  the  woman 
I  love.  But  in  another  way  I  am  a  scoundrel, 
Colonel.  For  the  past  two  days  I  have  been  con- 
temptible enough  to  play  upon  a  woman's  vanity 
merely  for  the  sake  of  keeping  her  from  talking 
too  much." 

The  grizzled  old  ranchman  shook  his  head 
sorrowfully. 

"I  didn't  think  that  of  you,  John;  I  sure  didn't. 
Why,  that's  what  you  might  call  a  low-down,  tin- 
horn sort  of  a  game." 

"It  is  just  that,  and  I  know  it  as  well  as  you  do. 
But  it's  the  price  I  have  to  pay  for  my  few  days 
of  grace.  Miss  Richlander  knows  the  Stantons; 
they've  made  it  their  business  to  get  acquainted 

269 


The  Real  Man 

with  her.  One  word  from  her  to  Crawford  Stan- 
ton, and  a  wire  from  him  to  my  home  town  in  the 
Middle  West  would  settle  me." 

The  older  man  straightened  himself  in  his  chair, 
and  his  steel-gray  eyes  blazed  suddenly. 

"Break  away  from  'em,  John!"  he  urged. 
"Break  it  off  short,  and  let  'em  all  do  their 
damnedest !  Away  along  at  the  first,  Williams  and 
I  both  said  you  wasn't  a  crooked  crook,  and  I'm 
believing  it  yet.  When  it  comes  to  the  show- 
down, we'll  all  fight  for  you,  and  they'll  have  to 
bring  a  derrick  along  if  they  want  to  snatch  you 
out  of  the  Timanyoni.  You  go  over  yonder  to 
the  Hophra  House  and  tell  that  young  woman 
that  the  bridle's  off,  and  she  can  talk  all  she 
wants  to  !" 

"No,"  said  Smith  shortly.  "I  know  what  I 
am  doing,  and  I  shall  go  on  as  I  have  begun. 
It's  the  only  way.  Matters  are  desperate  enough 
with  us  now,  and  if  I  should  drop  out " 

The  telephone-bell  was  ringing,  and  Baldwin 
twisted  his  chair  to  bring  himself  within  reach  of 
the  desk  set.  The  message  was  a  brief  one  and  at 
its  finish  the  ranchman-president  was  frowning 
heavily. 

"By  Jupiter!  it  does  seem  as  if  the  bad  luck 
all  comes  in  a  bunch!"  he  protested.     "Williams 

270 


Two  Women 

was  rushing  things  just  a  little  too  fast,  and  theyVe 
lost  a  whole  section  of  the  dam  by  stripping  the 
forms  before  the  concrete  was  set.  That  puts 
us  back  another  twenty-four  hours,  at  least. 
Don't  that  beat  the  mischief?" 

Smith  reached  for  his  hat.  "It's  six  o'clock/' 
he  said;  "and  Williams's  form-strippers  have 
furnished  one  more  reason  why  I  shouldn't  keep 
Miss  Richlander  waiting  for  her  dinner."  And 
with  that  he  cut  the  talk  short  and  went  his 
way. 

Brewster  being  only  a  one-night  stand  on  the 
long  playing  circuit  between  Denver  and  the 
Pacific  coast,  there  was  an  open  date  at  the  opera- 
house,  and  with  a  blank  evening  before  her,  the 
Olympian  beauty,  making  the  tete-a-tete  dinner 
count  for  what  it  would,  tightened  her  hold  upon 
the  one  man  available,  demanding  excitement. 
Nothing  else  offering,  she  suggested  an  evening 
auto  drive,  and  Smith  dutifully  telephoned  Max- 
well, the  railroad  superintendent,  and  borrowed 
a  runabout. 

Being  left  to  his  own  choice  of  routes  after  the 
start  was  made,  he  headed  the  machine  up  the 
river  road,  and  the  drive  paused  at  the  dam. 
Craving  a  new  sensation,  Miss  Richlander  had 
it  in  full  measure  when  the  machine  had  been 

271 


The  Real  Man 

braked  to  a  stop  at  the  construction  camp.  Wil- 
liams, hoarse  from  much  shouting  and  haggard- 
eyed  for  want  of  sleep,  was  driving  his  men  fiercely 
in  a  fight  against  time.  The  night  rise  in  the 
river  had  already  set  in,  and  the  slumped  sec- 
tion of  concrete  had  left  a  broad  gap  through 
which  the  water  threatened  to  pour,  endangering 
not  only  the  power-house  directly  beneath  it, 
but  also  the  main  structure  of  the  dam  itself. 

The  stagings  were  black  with  men  hurrying 
back  and  forth  under  the  glare  of  the  electrics, 
and  the  concrete  gangs  were  laboring  frantically 
to  clear  the  wreck  made  by  the  crumbling  mass, 
to  the  end  that  the  carpenters  might  bulkhead 
the  gap  with  timbers  and  planks  to  hold  back 
the  rising  flood.  The  mixers  had  stopped  tem- 
porarily, but  the  machinery  was  held  in  readiness 
to  go  into  action  the  moment  the  debris  should 
be  removed  and  the  new  forms  locked  into  place. 
Every  now  and  then  one  of  Williams's  assistants, 
a  red-headed  young  fellow  with  a  voice  like  a  fog- 
horn, took  readings  of  the  climbing  river  level 
from  a  gauge  in  the  slack  water,  calling  out  the 
figures  in  a  singsong  chant:  "Nineteen  six! 
Nineteen  six  and  a  quarter!  Nineteen  six  and  a 
half!" 

"Get  a  move,  you  fellows  there  on  the  stage!'* 
272 


Two  Women 

yelled  Williams.  "She's  coming  up  faster  than 
usual  to-night !  Double  pay  if  you  get  that  bulk- 
head in  before  the  tide  wets  your  feet !" 

Smith  felt  as  if  he  ought  to  get  out  of  the  car 
and  help,  but  there  was  nothing  he  could  do. 
Miss  Richlander  had  been  silent  for  the  better 
part  of  the  drive  from  town,  but  now  she  began 
to  talk. 

"So  this  is  what  you  left  Lawrenceville  for, 
is  it,  Montague  ?"  she  said,  knitting  her  perfect 
brows  at  the  hubbub  and  strife.  "If  I  were  not 
here,  I  believe  you  would  be  down  there,  strug- 
gling with  the  rest  of  them." 

"I  certainly  should,"  he  answered  briefly, 
adding:    "not  that  I  should  be  of  much  use." 

"There  are  a  good  many  easier  ways  of  making 
money,"  she  offered,  including  the  entire  indus- 
trial strife  in  the  implied  detraction. 

"This  is  a  man's  way,  asking  for  all — and  the 
best — there  is  in  a  man,"  he  asserted.  "You 
can't  understand,  of  course;  you  have  eaten  the 
bread  of  profits  and  discount  and  interest  all 
your  life.  But  here  is  something  really  creative. 
The  world  will  be  the  richer  for  what  is  being 
done  here;  more  mouths  can  be  filled  and  more 
backs  clothed.  That  is  the  true  test  of  wealth, 
and  the  only  test." 

273 


The  Real  Man 

"And  you  are  willing  to  live  in  a  raw  wilder- 
ness for  the  sake  of  having  a  part  in  these 
crudities  ?" 

"I  may  say  that  I  had  no  choice,  at  first;  it 
was  this  or  nothing.  But  I  may  also  say  that 
whatever  the  future  may  do  to  me,  I  shall  always 
have  it  to  remember  that  for  a  little  time  I  was  a 
man,  and  not  a  tailor's  model." 

"Is  that  the  way  you  are  thinking  now  of  your 
former  life?"  she  gibed. 

"It  is  the  truth.  The  man  you  knew  in  Law- 
renceville  cared  more  for  the  set  of  a  coat,  for 
the  color  of  a  tie,  for  conventional  ease  and  the 
little  luxuries,  than  he  did  for  his  soul.  And  no- 
body thought  enough  of  him  to  kick  him  alive  and 
show  him  that  he  was  strangling  the  only  part  of 
him  that  was  at  all  worth  saving." 

"If  your  point  of  view  appeals  to  me,  as  per- 
haps it  does — as  possibly  it  would  to  any  woman 
who  can  appreciate  masculinity  in  a  man,  even 
though  it  be  of  the  crudest — the  life  that  is  giving 
it  to  you  certainly  does  not,"  she  replied,  with  a 
little  lip-curling  of  scorn.  Then:  "You  couldn't 
bring  your  wife  to  such  a  place  as  Brewster, 
Montague." 

He  had  no  answer  for  this,  and  none  was  needed. 
Williams  had  caught  sight  of  the  auto,   and  he 

274 


Two  Women 

came  up,  wiping  his  face  with  a  red  handker- 
chief. 

"I  thought  it  must  be  you,"  he  said  to  Smith. 
"Thank  the  Lord,  we're  going  to  escape,  this 
one  more  time !  The  bulkhead's  in,  and  we'll  be 
dumping  concrete  in  another  fifteen  minutes.  But 
it  was  a  narrow  squeak — an  awful  narrow  squeak  !" 

Smith  turned  to  his  companion,  saw  permis- 
sion in  her  eyes,  and  introduced  Williams.  Some- 
what to  Smith's  surprise,  Miss  Verda  evinced  a 
suddenly  awakened  interest  in  the  engineer  and 
in  his  work,  making  him  tell  the  story  of  the 
near-disaster.  While  he  was  telling  it,  the  roar 
of  another  auto  rose  above  the  clamor  on  the 
stagings  and  Colonel  Baldwin's  gray  roadster 
drew  up  beside  the  borrowed  runabout.  Smith 
gave  one  glance  at  the  small,  trimly  coated  figure 
in  the  mechanician's  seat  and  ground  his  teeth 
in  helpless  fury. 

In  what  followed  he  had  little  part  or  lot. 
Miss  Richlander  wished  to  see  the  construction 
battle  at  shorter  range,  and  Williams  was  opening 
the  door  of  the  runabout.  The  colonel  was  afoot 
and  was  helping  his  daughter  to  alight.  Smith 
swore  a  silent  oath  to  keep  his  place,  and  he  did 
it;  but  Williams  was  already  introducing  Bald- 
win and  Corona  to  Miss  Richlander.     There  was 

275 


The  Real  Man 

a  bit  of  commonplace  talk,  and  then  the  quartet 
walked  down  the  embankment  and  out  upon  the 
finished  portion  of  the  dam,  Williams  explaining 
the  near-disaster  as  they  went. 

Smith  sat  back  behind  the  pilot-wheel  of  the 
runabout  and  waited.  Not  for  a  king's  ransom 
would  he  have  joined  the  group  on  the  dam.  He 
suspected  shrewdly  that  Verda  had  already  heard 
of  Corona  through  the  Stantons;  that  she  was 
inwardly  rejoicing  at  the  new  hold  upon  him 
which  chance  had  flung  in  her  way.  At  the  end 
of  Williams's  fifteen  minutes  the  rattle  and  grind 
of  the  mixers  began.  When  the  stream  of  con- 
crete came  pouring  through  the  high-tilted  spouts, 
Smith  looked  to  see  the  colonel  and  Williams 
bringing  the  two  women  back  to  the  camp  level. 
What  the  light  of  the  masthead  arcs  showed  him 
was  the  figure  of  one  of  the  women  returning 
alone,  while  the  two  men  and  the  other  woman 
went  on  across  the  stagings  to  the  farther  river 
bank  where  the  battery  of  mixers  fed  the  swiftly 
moving  lift. 

Smith  did  not  get  out  to  go  and  meet  the  re- 
turning figure;  his  courage  was  not  of  that  quality. 
But  he  could  not  pretend  to  be  either  asleep  or 
dead  when  Corona  came  up  between  the  two  cars 
and  spoke  to  him. 

276 


Two  Women 

"You  have  nothing  whatever  to  take  back," 
she  said,  smiling  up  at  him  from  her  seat  on  the 
running-board  of  the  roadster.  "She  is  all  you 
said  she  was — and  more.  She  is  gorgeously 
beautiful  1" 

Smith  flung  his  freshly  lighted  cigar  away  and 
climbed  out  to  sit  beside  her. 

"What  do  you  think  of  me?"  he  demanded 
bluntly. 

"What  should  I  think?  Didn't  I  scold  you 
for  running  away  from  her  that  first  evening  ?  I 
am  glad  you  thought  better  of  it  afterward." 

"I  am  not  thinking  better  of  it  at  all — in  the 
way  you  mean." 

"But  Miss  Richlander  is,"  was  the  quiet  reply. 

"You  have  a  right  to  say  anything  you  please; 
and  after  it  is  all  said,  to  say  it  again.  I  am  not 
the  man  you  have  been  taking  me  for;  not  in 
any  respect.  Your  father  knows  now,  and  he 
will  tell  you." 

"Colonel-daddy  has  told  me  one  thing — the 
thing  you  told  him  to  tell  me.  And  I  am  sorry — 
sorry  and  disappointed." 

He  smiled  morosely.  "Billy  Starbuck  calls 
the  Timanyoni  a  half-reformed  gun-country,  and 
from  the  very  first  he  has  been  urging  me  to  'go 
heeled/  as  he  phrases  it." 

277 


The  Real  Man 

"It  isn't  the  mere  carrying  of  a  gun,"  she 
protested.  "With  most  men  that  would  be  only 
a  prudent  precaution  for  the  leader  in  a  fight 
like  this  one  you  are  making.  But  it  means  more 
than  that  to  you;  it  means  a  complete  change  of 
attitude  toward  your  kind.  Tell  me  if  I  am 
wrong." 

"No;  you  are  right.  The  time  is  coming  when 
I  shall  be  obliged  to  kill  somebody.  And  I  think 
I  shall  rather  welcome  it." 

"Now  you  have  gone  so  far  away  that  I  can 
hardly  see  you,"  she  said  softly.  "  'Once  in  a 
blue  moon/  you  said,  the  impossible  might  hap- 
pen. It  did  happen  in  your  case,  didn't  it? — 
giving  you  a  chance  to  grow  and  expand  and  to 
break  with  all  the  old  traditions,  whatever  they 
were.  And  the  break  left  you  free  to  make  of 
yourself  what  you  should  choose.  You  have  all 
the  abilities;  you  can  reach  out  and  take  what 
other  men  have  to  beg  for.  Once  you  thought 
you  would  take  only  the  best,  and  then  you  grew 
so  fast  that  we  could  hardly  keep  you  in  sight. 
But  now  you  are  meaning  to  take  the  worst." 

"I  don't  understand,"  he  said  soberly. 

"You  will  understand  some  day,"  she  asserted, 
matching  his  sober  tone.  "When  that  time  comes, 
you  will  know  that  the  only  great  men  are  those 

278 


Two  Women 

who  love  their  fellow  men;  who  are  too  big  to  be 
little;  who  can  fight  without  hatred;  who  can 
die,  if  need  be,  that  others  may  live." 

"My  God  !"  said  the  man,  and  though  he  said 
it  under  his  breath  there  was,  pent  up  in  the  two 
words,  the  cry  of  a  soul  in  travail;  a  soul  to  whom 
its  own  powers  have  suddenly  been  revealed,  to- 
gether with  its  lost  opportunities  and  its  crush- 
ing inability  to  rise  to  the  heights  supernal. 

"It  came  too  soon — if  I  could  only  have  had  a 
little  more  time,"  he  was  saying;  but  at  that, 
the  colonel  and  Williams  came  up,  bringing  Miss 
Richlander,  and  the  heart-mellowing  moment  was 
gone. 

Smith  drove  the  borrowed  runabout  back  to 
town  in  sober  silence,  and  the  glorious  beauty 
in  the  seat  beside  him  did  not  try  to  make  him 
talk.  Perhaps  she,  too,  was  busy  with  thoughts 
of  her  own.  At  all  events,  when  Smith  had  helped 
her  out  of  the  car  at  the  hotel  entrance  and  had 
seen  her  as  far  as  the  elevator,  she  thanked  him 
half  absently  and  took  his  excuse,  that  he  must 
return  the  runabout  to  Maxwell's  garage,  with- 
out laying  any  further  commands  upon  him. 

Just  as  he  was  turning  away,  a  bell-boy  came 
across  from  the  clerk's  desk  with  a  telegram 
for  Miss  Richlander.      Smith  had  no  excuse  for 

279 


The  Real  Man 

lingering,  but  with  the  air  thick  with  threats  he 
made  the  tipping  of  the  boy  answer  for  a  mo- 
mentary stop-gap.  Miss  Verda  tore  the  envelope 
open  and  read  the  enclosure  with  a  fine-lined 
little  frown  coming  and  going  between  her  eyes. 

"It's  from  Tucker  Jibbey,"  she  said,  glancing 
up  at  Smith.  "Some  one  has  told  him  where 
we  are,  and  he  is  following  us.  He  says  he'll  be 
here  on  the  evening  train.  Will  you  meet  him 
and  tell  him  I've  gone  to  bed  ?" 

At  the  mention  of  Jibbey,  the  money-spoiled 
son  of  the  man  who  stood  next  to  Josiah  Rich- 
lander  in  the  credit  ratings,  and  Lawrenceville's 
best  imitation  of  a  flaneur,  Smith's  first  emotion 
was  one  of  relief  at  the  thought  that  Jibbey  would 
at  least  divide  time  with  him  in  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  bored  beauty;  then  he  remembered 
that  Jibbey  had  once  considered  him  a  rival,  and 
that  the  sham  "rounder's"  presence  in  Brewster 
would  constitute  a  menace  more  threatening  than 
all  the  others  put  together. 

"I  can't  meet  Tucker,"  he  said  bluntly.  "You 
know  very  well  I  can't." 

"That's  so,"  was  the  quiet  reply.  "Of  course, 
you  can't.  What  will  you  do  when  he  comes  r — 
run  away  ?" 

"No;  I  can't  do  that,  either.  I  shall  keep  out 
280 


Two  Women 

of  his  way,  if  I  can.  If  he  finds  me  and  makes  any 
bad  breaks,  he'll  get  what's  coming  to  him.  If 
he's  worth  anything  to  you,  you'll  put  him  on 
the  stage  in  the  morning  and  send  him  up  into 
the  mountains  to  join  your  father." 

"The  idea!"  she  laughed.  "He's  not  coming 
out  here  to  see  father.  Poor  Tucker  !  If  he  could 
only  know  what  he  is  in  for!"  Then:  "It  is 
beginning  to  look  as  if  you  might  have  to  go  still 
deeper  in  debt  to  me,  Montague.  There  is  one 
more  thing  I'd  like  to  do  before  I  leave  Brewster. 
If  I'll  promise  to  keep  Tucker  away  from  you, 
will  you  drive  me  out  to  the  Baldwins'  to-morrow 
afternoon  ?  I  want  to  see  the  colonel's  fine  horses, 
and  he  has  invited  me,  you  know." 

Smith's  eyes  darkened. 

"There  is  a  limit,  Verda,  and  you've  reached 
it,"  he  said  quickly.  "  If  the  colonel  invited 
you  to  Hillcrest,  it  was  because  you  didn't  leave 
him  any  chance  not  to.  I  resign  in  favor  of 
Jibbey,"  and  with  that  he  handed  her  into  the 
waiting  elevator  and  said:  "Good  night." 


281 


XX 

Tucker  Jibbey 

THOUGH  it  was  a  working  man's  bedtime 
when  Smith  put  Miss  Richlander  into  the 
elevator  at  the  Hophra  House  and  bade  her  good 
night,  he  knew  that  there  would  be  no  sleep  for 
him  until  he  had  made  sure  of  the  arrival  or  non- 
arrival  of  the  young  man  who,  no  less  certainly 
than  Josiah  Richlander  or  Debritt,  could  slay 
him  with  a  word.  Returning  the  borrowed  run- 
about to  its  garage,  he  went  to  the  railroad  station 
and  learned  that  the  "Flyer"  from  the  East  was 
over  four  hours  late.  With  thirty  minutes  to 
spare,  he  walked  the  long  train  platform,  chew- 
ing an  extinct  cigar  and  growing  more  and  more 
desperate  at  each  pacing  turn. 

With  time  to  weigh  and  measure  the  probabili- 
ties, he  saw  what  would  come  to  pass.  Verda 
Richlander  might  keep  her  own  counsel,  or  she 
might  not;  but  in  any  event,  Stanton  would  be 
quick  to  identify  Jibbey  as  a  follower  of  Verda's, 
and  so,  by  implication,  a  man  who  would  be  ac- 
quainted with  Verda's  intimates.     Smith  recalled 

282 


Tucker  Jibbey 

Jibbey's  varied  weaknesses.  If  Verda  should  get 
hold  of  him  first,  and  was  still  generous  enough 
to  warn  him  against  Stanton,  the  blow  might  be 
delayed.  But  if  Stanton  should  be  quick  enough, 
and  cunning  enough  to  play  upon  Jibbey's  thirst, 
the  liquor-loosened  tongue  would  tell  all  that  it 
knew. 

In  such  a  crisis  the  elemental  need  rises  up  to 
thrust  all  other  promptings,  ethical  or  merely 
prudent,  into  the  background.  Smith  had  been 
profoundly  moved  by  Corona  Baldwin's  latest 
appeal  to  such  survivals  of  truth  and  honor  and 
fair-dealing  as  the  strange  metamorphosis  and 
the  culminating  struggle  against  odds  had  left 
him.  But  in  any  new  birth  it  is  inevitable  that 
the  offspring  of  the  man  that  was  shall  be  at 
first — like  all  new-born  beings — a  pure  savage, 
guided  only  by  instinct.  And  of  the  instincts, 
that  of  self-preservation  easily  overtops  all  others. 

Smith  saw  how  suddenly  the  pit  of  disaster 
would  yawn  for  him  upon  Jibbey's  arrival,  and 
the  compunctions  stirred  by  Corona's  plea  for 
the  higher  ideals  withdrew  or  were  crushed  in  the 
turmoil.  He  had  set  his  hand  to  the  plough  and 
he  would  not  turn  back.  It  was  Jibbey's  efface- 
ment  in  some  way,  or  his  own,  he  told  himself, 
for  he  had  long  since  determined  that  he  would 

283 


The  Real  Man 

never  be  taken  alive  to  be  dragged  back  to  face 
certain  conviction  in  the  Lawrenceville  courts 
and  a  living  death  in  the  home  State  peni- 
tentiary. 

With  this  determination  gripping  him  afresh, 
he  glanced  at  his  watch.  In  fifteen  minutes  more 
his  fate  would  be  decided.  The  station  baggage 
and  express  handlers  were  beginning  to  trundle 
their  loaded  trucks  out  across  the  platform  to  be 
in  readiness  for  the  incoming  train.  There  was 
still  time  enough,  but  none  to  spare.  Smith 
passed  through  the  station  quickly  and  on  the 
town  side  of  the  building  took  a  cab.  "  Benkler's," 
was  his  curt  order  to  the  driver;  and  three  minutes 
later  he  was  telling  the  night  man  at  the  garage 
that  he  had  come  back  to  borrow  Maxwell's 
runabout  again,  and  urging  haste  in  the  refilling 
of  the  tanks. 

The  delayed  "Flyer"  was  whistling  in  when 
Smith  drove  the  runabout  to  the  station,  and  he 
had  barely  time  to  back  the  machine  into  place 
in  the  cab  rank  and  to  hurry  out  to  the  platform 
before  the  train  came  clattering  down  over  the 
yard  switches.  Since  all  the  debarking  passengers 
had  to  come  through  the  archway  exit  from  the 
track  platform,  Smith  halted  at  a  point  from  which 
he  could  pass  them  in  review.     The  day-coach 

284 


Tucker  Jibbey 

people  came  first,  and  after  them  a  smaller  con- 
tingent from  the  sleepers.  At  the  tail  of  the 
straggling  procession  Smith  saw  his  man,  a  thin- 
faced,  hollow-eyed  young  fellow  with  an  un- 
lighted  cigarette  hanging  from  his  loose  lower 
lip.  Smith  marked  all  the  little  details:  the 
rakish  hat,  the  flaming-red  tie,  the  russet-leather 
suitcase  with  its  silver  identification  tag.  Then 
he  placed  himself  squarely  in  the  young  man's 
way. 

Jibbey's  stare  was  only  momentary.  With  a 
broad-mouthed  grin  he  dropped  the  suitcase  and 
thrust  out  a  hand. 

"Well,  well — Monty,  old  sport!  So  this  is 
where  you  ducked  to,  is  it  ?  By  Jove,  it's  no 
wonder  Bart  Macauley  couldn't  get  a  line  on 
you  !    How  are  tricks,  anyway  ?" 

Smith  was  carefully  refusing  to  see  the  out- 
stretched hand.  And  it  asked  for  a  sudden 
tightening  of  the  muscles  of  self-possession  to 
keep  him  from  looking  over  his  shoulder  to  see 
if  any  of  Stanton's  shadow  men  were  at  hand. 

"Verda  got  your  telegram,  and  she  asked  me 
to  meet  you,"  he  rejoined  crisply.  "Also,  to 
make  her  excuses  for  to-night:  she  has  gone  to 
bed." 

"So  that's  the  way  the  cat's  jumping,  is  it?" 

285 


The  Real  Man 

said  the  imitation  black  sheep,  the  grin  twisting 
itself  into  a  leer.  "She  got  a  line  on  you,  even 
if  Macauley  couldn't.  By  Gad  !  I  guess  I  didn't 
get  out  here  any  too  soon." 

Smith  ignored  the  half-jealous  pleasantry. 
"Bring  your  grip,"  he  directed.  "I  have  an 
auto  here  and  we'll  drive." 

Being  a  stranger  in  a  strange  city,  Jibbey 
could  not  know  that  the  hotel  was  only  three 
squares  distant.  For  the  same  cause  he  was 
entirely  unsuspicious  when  Smith  turned  the 
car  to  the  right  out  of  the  cab  rank  and  took  a 
street  leading  to  the  western  suburb.  But  when 
the  pavements  had  been  left  behind,  together 
with  all  the  town  lights  save  an  occasional  arc- 
lamp  at  a  crossing,  and  he  was  trying  for  the 
third  time  to  hold  a  match  to  the  hanging  cigarette, 
enough  ground  had  been  covered  to  prompt  a 
question. 

"Hell  of  a  place  to  call  itself  a  city,  if  anybody 
should  ask  you,"  he  chattered.  "Much  of  this 
to  worry  through  ?" 

Smith  bent  lower  over  the  tiller-wheel,  ad- 
vancing the  spark  and  opening  the  throttle  for 
more  gas. 

"A  good  bit  of  it.  Didn't  you  know  that  Mr. 
Richlander  is  out  in  the  hills,  buying  a  mine?" 

286 


Tucker  Jibbey 

Tucker  Jibbey  was  rapid  only  in  his  attitude 
toward  the  world  of  decency;  the  rapidity  did 
not  extend  to  his  mental  processes.  The  suburb 
street  had  become  a  country  road,  the  bridge  over 
the  torrenting  Gloria  had  thundered  under  the 
flying  wheels,  and  a  great  butte,  black  in  its 
foresting  from  foot  to  summit,  was  rising  slowly 
among  the  western  stars  before  his  small  brain 
had  grasped  the  relation  of  cause  to  effect. 

"Say,  here,  Monty — dammit  all,  you  hold  on! 
Verda  isn't  with  Old  Moneybags;  she's  staying 
at  the  hotel  in  town.  I  wired  and  found  out 
before  I  left  Denver.  Where  in  Sam  Hill  are 
you  taking  me  to  ?" 

Smith  made  no  reply  other  than  to  open  the 
cut-out  and  to  put  his  foot  on  the  accelerator. 
The  small  car  leaped  forward  at  racing  speed 
and  Jibbey  clutched  wildly  at  the  wheel. 

"Stop  her — stop  her!"  he  shrilled.  "Lemme 
get  out  I" 

Smith  had  one  hand  free  and  it  went  swiftly 
to  his  hip  pocket.  A  second  later  Jibbey's  shrill- 
ing protest  died  away  in  a  gurgle  of  terror. 

"For— for  God's  sake,  Monty— don't  kill  me!" 
he  gasped,  when  he  saw  the  free  hand  clutching 
a  weapon  and  uplifted  as  if  to  strike.  "Wh — ■ 
what've  I  done  to  you  ?" 

287 


The  Real  Man 

"I'll  tell  you — a  little  later.  Keep  quiet  and 
let  this  wheel  alone,  if  you  want  to  live  long 
enough  to  find  out  where  you're  going.  Quiet 
down,  I  say,  or  I'll  beat  your  damned  head  off! — 
oh,  you  would,  would  you  ?  All  right — if  you 
will  have  it !" 


It  lacked  only  a  few  minutes  of  midnight  when 
Smith  returned  the  borrowed  runabout  for  the 
second  time  that  night,  sending  it  jerkily  through 
the  open  door  of  Benkler's  garage  and  swinging 
stiffly  from  behind  the  steering-wheel  to  thrust 
a  bank-note  into  the  hand  of  the  waiting  night 
man. 

"Wash  the  car  down  good,  and  be  sure  it's  all 
right  before  Mr.  Maxwell  sends  around  in  the 
morning,"  he  commanded  gruffly;  and  then: 
"Take  your  whisk  and  dust  me  off." 

The  night  man  had  seen  the  figure  of  his  tip 
and  was  nothing  loath. 

"Gosh!"  he  exclaimed,  with  large  Western 
freedom;  "you  sure  look  as  if  you'd  been  drivin' 
a  good  ways,  and  tol'able  hard.  What's  this  on 
your  sleeve  ?    Say  !  it  looks  like  blood  !" 

"No;  it's  mud,"  was  the  short  reply;  and 
after  the  liberal  tipper  had  gone,  the  garage  man 

288 


Tucker  Jibbey 

was  left  to  wonder  where,  on  the  dust-dry  roads 
in  the  Timanyoni,  the  borrower  of  Mr.  Maxwell's 
car  had  found  mud  deep  enough  to  splash  him, 
and,  further,  why  there  was  no  trace  of  the  mud 
on  the  dust-covered  car  itself. 


289 


XXI 

At  Any  Cost 

BREWSTER,  drawing  its  business  profit 
chiefly  from  the  mines  in  the  Topaz  and 
upper  Gloria  districts,  had  been  only  moderately 
enthusiastic  over  the  original  irrigation  project 
organized  by  Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin  and  the 
group  of  ranchmen  who  were  to  be  directly  bene- 
fited. But  when  the  scope  of  the  plan  was  en- 
larged to  include  a  new  source  of  power  and 
light  for  the  city,  the  scheme  had  become,  in  a 
broader  sense,  a  public  utility,  and  Brewster  had 
promptly  awakened  to  the  importance  of  its 
success  as  a  local  enterprise. 

The  inclusion  of  the  hydro-electric  privilege 
in  the  new  charter  had  been  a  bit  of  far-sighted 
business  craft  on  the  part  of  the  young  man 
whose  name  was  now  in  everybody's  mouth.  As 
he  had  pointed  out  to  his  new  board  of  directors, 
there  was  an  abundant  excess  of  water,  and  a 
modest  profit  on  the  electric  plant  would  pay  the 
operating  expenses  of  the  entire  system,  including 

290 


At  Any  Cost 

the  irrigating  up-keep  and  extension  work.  In 
addition  to  this,  a  reasonable  contract  price  for 
electric  current  to  be  furnished  to  the  city  would 
give  the  project  a  quasi-public  character,  at  least 
to  the  extent  of  enlisting  public  sympathy  on 
the  side  of  the  company  in  the  fight  with  the 
land  trust. 

This  piece  of  business  foresight  found  itself 
amply  justified  as  the  race  against  time  was  nar- 
rowed down  to  days  and  hours.  Though  there 
was  spiteful  opposition  offered  by  one  of  the  two 
daily  newspapers — currently  charged  with  being 
subsidized  by  the  land  trust — public  sentiment 
as  a  whole,  led  by  the  other  newspaper,  was 
strongly  on  the  side  of  the  local  corporation. 
Baldwin,  Maxwell,  Starbuck,  and  a  few  more  of 
the  leading  spirits  in  Timanyoni  High  Line  had 
many  friends,  and  Crawford  Stanton  found  his 
task  growing  increasingly  difficult  as  the  climax 
drew  near. 

But  to  a  man  with  an  iron  jaw  difficulties  be- 
come merely  incentives  to  greater  effort.  Being 
between  the  devil,  in  the  person  of  an  employer 
who  knew  no  mercy,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
deep  blue  sea  of  failure  on  the  other,  the  pro- 
moter left  no  expedient  untried,  and  the  one  which 
was  yielding  the  best  results,  thus  far,  was  the 

291 


The  Real  Man 

steady  undercurrent  of  detraction  and  calamitous 
rumor  which  he  had  contrived  to  set  in  motion. 
As  we  have  seen,  it  was  first  whispered,  and  then 
openly  asserted,  that  the  dam  was  being  built 
too  hurriedly;  that  its  foundations  were  insecure; 
that,  sooner  or  later,  it  would  be  carried  away  in 
high  water,  and  the  city  and  the  intervening 
country  would  be  flood-swept  and  devastated. 

Beyond  this,  the  detractive  gossip  attacked 
the  personnel  of  the  new  company.  Baldwin  was 
all  right  as  a  man,  and  he  knew  how  to  raise  fine 
horses;  but  what  did  he,  or  any  of  his  associates, 
know  about  building  dams  and  installing  hydro- 
electric plants  ?  Williams,  the  chief  engineer, 
was  an  ex-government  man,  and — government 
projects  being  anathema  in  the  Timanyoni  by 
reason  of  the  restrictive  rules  and  regulations  of 
the  Hophra  Forest  Reserve — everybody  knew 
what  that  meant:  out-of-date  methods,  red-tape 
detail,  general  inefficiency.  And  Smith,  the  young 
plunger  who  had  dropped  in  from  nobody  knew 
where:  what  could  be  said  of  him  more  than 
that  he  had  succeeded  in  temporarily  hypnotizing 
an  entire  city  ?  Who  was  he  ?  and  where  had  the 
colonel  found  him  ?  Was  his  name  really  Smith, 
or  was  that  only  a  convenient  alias? 

Having  set  these  queries  afoot  in  Brewster, 
292 


At  Any  Cost 

Stanton  was  unwearied  in  keeping  them  alive 
and  pressing  them  home.  And  since  such  ask- 
ings grow  by  what  they  feed  upon,  the  questions 
soon  began  to  lose  the  interrogatory  form  and 
to  become  assertions  of  fact.  Banker  Kinzie  was 
quoted  as  saying,  or  at  least  as  intimating,  that 
he  had  lost  faith,  not  only  in  the  High  Line  scheme, 
but  particularly  in  its  secretary  and  treasurer; 
and  to  this  bit  of  gossip  was  added  another  to 
the  effect  that  Smith  had  grossly  deceived  the 
bank  by  claiming  to  be  the  representative  of 
Eastern  capital  when  he  was  nothing  more  than 
an  adventurer  trading  upon  the  credulity  and 
good  nature  of  an  entire  community. 

To  these  calumniating  charges  it  was  admitted 
on  all  sides  that  Smith,  himself,  was  giving  some 
color  of  truth.  To  those  who  had  opposed  him 
he  had  shown  no  mercy,  and  there  were  plenty 
of  defeated  litigants,  and  some  few  dropped 
stockholders,  among  the  obstructors  to  claim 
that  the  new  High  Line  promoter  was  a  bully 
and  a  browbeater;  that  a  poor  man  stood  no 
chance  in  a  fight  with  the  Timanyoni  Company. 

On  the  sentimental  side  the  charges  were  still 
graver — in  the  Western  point  of  view.  In  its 
social  aspect  Brewster  was  still  in  the  country- 
village  stage,  and  Smith's  goings  and  comings  at 

293 


The  Real  Man 

Hillcrest  had  been  quickly  marked.  From  that 
to  assuming  the  sentimental  status,  with  the 
colonel's  daughter  in  the  title  role,  was  a  step 
that  had  already  been  taken  by  the  society 
editress  of  the  Brewster  Banner  in  a  veiled  hint 
of  a  forthcoming  "announcement"  in  which  "the 
charming  daughter  of  one  of  our  oldest  and 
most  respected  families"  and  "a  brilliant  young 
business  man  from  the  East"  were  to  figure  as 
the  parties  in  interest.  Conceive,  therefore,  the 
shock  that  had  been  given  to  these  kindlier 
gossips  when  Smith's  visits  to  the  Baldwin 
ranch  ceased  abruptly  between  two  days,  and 
the  "brilliant  young  business  man"  was  seen 
everywhere  and  always  in  the  company  of  the 
beautiful  stranger  who  was  stopping  at  the  Ho- 
phra  House.  In  its  palmier  day  the  Timanyoni 
had  hanged  a  man  for  less. 

On  the  day  following  the  hindering  concrete 
failure  at  the  dam,  Smith  gave  still  more  color 
to  the  charges  of  his  detractors  in  the  business 
field.  Those  whose  affairs  brought  them  in  con- 
tact with  him  found  a  man  suddenly  grown  years 
older  and  harder,  moody  and  harshly  dictatorial, 
not  to  say  quarrelsome;  a  man  who  seemed  to 
have  parted,  in  the  short  space  of  a  single  night, 
with  all  of  the  humanizing  affabilities  which  he 

294 


At  Any  Cost 

had  shown  to  such  a  marked  degree  in  the  re- 
organizing and  refinancing  of  the  irrigation  proj- 
ect. 

"We've  got  our  young  Napoleon  of  finance  on 
the  toboggan-slide,  at  last,"  was  the  way  in  which 
Mr.  Crawford  Stanton  phrased  it  for  the  be- 
jewelled lady  at  their  luncheon  in  the  Hophra 
cafe.  "Kinzie  is  about  to  throw  him  over,  and 
all  this  talk  about  botch  work  on  the  dam  is 
getting  his  goat.  They're  telling  it  around  town 
this  morning  that  you  can't  get  near  him  without 
risking  a  fight.  Old  Man  Backus  went  up  to  his 
office  in  behalf  of  a  bunch  of  the  scared  stock- 
holders, and  Smith  abused  him  first  and  then 
threw  him  out  bodily — hurt  him  pretty  savagely, 
they  say." 

The  large  lady's  accurately  pencilled  eyebrows 
went  up  in  mild  surprise. 

"Bad  temper?"  she  queried. 

"Bad  temper,  or  an  acute  attack  of  'rattle- 
itis';  you  can  take  your  choice.  I  suppose  he 
hasn't,  by  any  chance,  quarrelled  with  Miss  Rich- 
lander  overnight  ? — or  has  he  ?" 

The  fat  lady  shook  her  diamonds.  "I  should 
say  not.  They  were  at  luncheon  together  in  the 
ladies'  ordinary  as  I  came  down  a  few  minutes 
ago." 

29s 


The  Real  Man 

Thus  the  partner  of  Crawford  Stanton's  joys 
and  sorrows.  But  an  invisible  onlooker  in  the 
small  dining-room  above-stairs  might  have  drawn 
other  conclusions.  Smith  and  the  daughter  of 
the  Lawrenceville  magnate  had  a  small  table  to 
themselves,  and  if  the  talk  were  not  precisely 
quarrelsome,  it  leaned  that  way  at  times. 

"I  have  never  seen  you  quite  so  brutal  and 
impossible  as  you  are  to-day,  Montague.  You 
don't  seem  like  the  same  man.  Was  it  something 
the  little  ranch  girl  said  to  you  last  night  when 
she  calmly  walked  away  from  us  and  went  back 
to  you  at  the  autos  ?" 

"No;  she  said  nothing  that  she  hadn't  a  per- 
fect right  to  say." 

"But  it,  or  something  else,  has  changed  you — 
very  much  for  the  worse.  Are  you  going  to 
reconsider  and  take  me  out  to  the  Baldwin  ranch 
this  afternoon  ?" 

"And  let  you  parade  me  there  as  your  latest 
acquisition  ? — never  in  this  world  !" 

"More  of  the  brutality.  Positively,  you  are 
getting  me  into  a  frame  of  mind  in  which  Tucker 
Jibbey  will  seem  like  a  blessed  relief.  Whatever 
do  you  suppose  has  become  of  Tucker  ?" 

"How  should  I  know?" 

"If  he  had  come  in  last  night,  and  you  had 
296 


At  Any  Cost 

met  him — as  I  asked  you  to — in  any  such  heavenly 
temper  as  you  are  indulging  now,  I  might  think 
you  had  murdered  him." 

It  was  doubtless  by  sheer  accident  that  Smith, 
reaching  at  the  moment  for  the  salad-oil,  over- 
turned his  water-glass.  But  the  small  accident 
by  no  means  accounted  for  the  sudden  graying 
of  his  face  under  the  Timanyoni  wind  tan — for 
that  or  for  the  shaking  hands  with  which  he 
seconded  the  waiter's  anxious  efforts  to  repair 
the  damage.  When  they  were  alone  again,  the 
momentary  trepidation  had  given  place  to  a  re- 
newed hardness  that  lent  a  biting  rasp  to  his  voice. 

"Kinzie,  the  suspicious  old  banker  that  I've 
been  telling  you  about,  is  determined  to  run  me 
down,"  he  said,  changing  the  subject  abruptly. 
"  I've  got  it  pretty  straight  that  he  is  planning 
to  send  one  of  his  clerks  to  the  Topaz  district  to 
try  and  find  your  father." 

"In  the  hope  that  father  will  tell  what  he 
knows  about  you  ? " 

"Just  that." 

"Does  this  Mr.  Kinzie  know  where  father  is 
to  be  found  ?" 

"He  doesn't;    that's  the  only  hitch." 

Miss  Verda's  smile  across  the  little  table  was 
level-eyed. 

297 


The  Real  Man 

"I  could  be  lots  of  help  to  you,  Montague,  in 
this  fight  you  are  making,  if  you'd  only  let  me," 
she  suggested.  "For  example,  I  might  tell  you 
that  Mr.  Stanton  has  exhausted  his  entire  stock 
of  ingenuity  in  trying  to  make  me  tell  him  where 
father  has  gone." 

"I'll  fight  for  my  own  hand,"  was  the  grating 
rejoinder.  "I  can  assure  you,  right  now,  that 
Kinzie's  messenger  will  never  reach  your  father — 
alive." 

"Ooh!"  shuddered  the  beauty,  with  a  little  lift 
of  the  rounded  shoulders.  "How  utterly  and 
hopelessly  primitive  !  Let  me  show  you  a  much 
simpler  and  humaner  alternative.  Contrive  to 
get  word  to  Mr.  Kinzie  in  some  way  that  he 
might  send  his  messenger  direct  to  me.-  Can 
you  do  that?" 

"You  mean  that  you'd  send  the  clerk  on  a 
wild-goose  chase?" 

"If  you  insist  on  putting  it  in  the  baldest  pos- 
sible form,"  said  the  young  woman,  with  a  low 
laugh.  "  I  have  a  map  of  the  mining  district, 
you  know.  Father  left  it  with  me — in  case  I 
should  want  to  communicate  with  him." 

Smith  looked  up  with  a  smile  which  was  a 
mere  baring  of  the  teeth. 

"  You  wouldn't  get  in  a  man's  way  with  any 

298 


At  Any  Cost 

fine-spun  theories  of  the  ultimate  right  and  wrong, 
would  you  ?  You  wouldn't  say  that  the  only 
great  man  is  the  man  who  loves  his  fellow  men, 
and  all  that?" 

Again  the  handsome  shoulders  were  lifted,  this 
time  in  cool  scorn. 

"Are  you  quoting  the  little  ranch  person?" 
she  inquired.  Then  she  answered  his  query: 
"The  only  great  men  worth  speaking  of  are  the 
men  who  win.  For  the  lack  of  something  better 
to  do,  I'm  willing  to  help  you  win,  Montague. 
Contrive  in  some  way  to  have  that  clerk  sent 
to  me.  It  can  come  about  quite  casually  if  it  is 
properly  suggested.  Most  naturally,  I  am  the 
one  who  would  know  where  my  father  is  to  be 
found.  And  I  have  changed  my  mind  about 
wanting  to  drive  to  the  Baldwins'.  We'll  com- 
promise on  the  play — if  there  is  a  play." 

Two  things  came  of  this  talk  over  the  luncheon 
table.  Smith  went  back  to  his  office  and  shut 
himself  up,  without  going  near  the  Brewster  City 
National.  None  the  less,  the  expedient  suggested 
by  Verda  Richlander  must  have  found  its  means 
of  communication  in  some  way,  since  at  two 
o'clock  David  Kinzie  summoned  the  confidential 
clerk  who  had  been  directed  to  provide  himself 
with  a  livery  mount  and  gave  him  his  instructions. 

299 


The  Real  Man 

"I'm  turning  this  over  to  you,  Hoback,  be- 
cause you  know  enough  to  keep  a  still  tongue  in 
your  head.  Mr.  Stanton  doesn't  know  where 
Mr.  Richlander  is,  but  Mr.  Richlander's  daughter 
does  know.  Go  over  to  the  hotel  and  introduce 
yourself  as  coming  from  me.  Say  to  the  daughter 
that  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  communicate  with 
her  father  on  a  matter  of  important  business, 
and  ask  her  if  she  can  direct  you.  That's  all; 
only  don't  mention  Stanton  in  the  matter.  Come 
back  and  report  after  you've  seen  her." 

This  was  one  of  the  results  of  the  luncheon- 
table  talk;  and  the  other  came  a  short  half-hour 
further  along,  when  the  confidential  clerk  returned 
to  make  his  report. 

"I  don't  know  why  Miss  Richlander  wouldn't 
tell  Mr.  Stanton,"  he  said.  "She  was  mighty 
nice  to  me;  made  me  a  pencil  sketch  of  the  Topaz 
country  and  marked  the  mines  that  her  father 
is  examining." 

"Good!"  said  David  Kinzie,  with  his  stubbly 
mustache  at  its  most  aggressive  angle.  "It's 
pretty  late  in  the  day,  but  you'd  better  make  a 
start  and  get  as  far  as  you  can  before  dark.  When 
you  find  Mr.  Richlander,  handle  him  gently.  Tell 
him  who  you  are,  and  then  ask  him  if  he  knows 
anything   about   a   man    named    '  Montague, '    or 

300 


At  Any  Cost 

*  Montague  Smith';  ask  him  who  he  is,  and  where 
he  comes  from.  If  you  get  that  far  with  him,  he'll 
probably  tell  you  the  rest  of  it." 

Smith  saw  no  more  of  Miss  Richlander  until 
eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  at  which  time  he 
sent  his  card  to  her  room  and  waited  for  her  in 
the  mezzanine  parlors.  When  she  came  down 
to  him,  radiant  in  fine  raiment,  he  seemed  not 
to  see  the  bedeckings  or  the  beauty  which  they 
adorned. 

"There  is  a  play,  and  I  have  the  seats,"  he 
announced  briefly. 

"  Merci!"  she  flung  back.  "Small  favors 
thankfully  received,  and  larger  ones  in  propor- 
tion; though  it's  hardly  a  favor,  this  time,  be- 
cause I  have  paid  for  it  in  advance.  Mr.  Kinzie's 
young  man  came  to  see  me  this  afternoon." 

"What  did  you  do?" 

"I  gave  him  a  tracing  of  my  map,  and  he  was 
so  grateful  that  it  made  me  want  to  tell  him  that 
it  was  all  wrong;  that  he  wouldn't  find  father 
in  a  month  if  he  followed  the  directions." 

"But  you  didn't!" 

"No;  I  can  play  the  game,  when  it  seems 
worth  while." 

Smith  was  frowning  thoughtfully  when  he  led 
her  to  the  elevator  alcove. 

301 


The  Real  Man 

"My  way  would  have  been  the  surer,"  he 
muttered,  half  to  himself. 

"Barbarian!"  she  laughed;  and  then:  "To 
think  that  you  were  once  a  ' debutantes'  darling' ! 
Oh,  yes;  I  know  it  was  Carter  Westfall  who 
said  it  first,  but  it  was  true  enough  to  name  you 
instantly  for  all  Lawrenceville." 

Smith  made  no  comment,  and  Miss  Rich- 
lander  did  not  speak  again  until  they  were  wait- 
ing in  the  women's  lobby  for  the  house  porter  to 
call  a  cab.    Then,  as  if  she  had  just  remembered  it: 

"Oh!  I  forgot  to  ask  you:  is  the  Eastern 
train  in  ?" 

He  nodded.  "It  was  on  time  this  evening — 
for  a  wonder." 

"And  no  Tucker  yet!  What  in  the  world  do 
you  suppose  could  have  happened  to  him,  Mon- 
tague  r 

The  porter  was  announcing  the  theatre  cab 
and  Smith  reserved  his  answer  until  the  motor 
hackney  was  rolling  jerkily  away  toward  the 
opera-house. 

"Jibbey  has  probably  got  what  was  coming 
to  him,"  he  said  grittingly.  "I  don't  know 
whether  you  have  ever  remarked  it  or  not,  but 
the  insect  of  the  Jibbey  breed  usually  finds  some- 
body to  come  along  and  step  on  it,  sooner  or  later." 

302 


XXII 

The  Megalomaniac 

ON  a  day  which  was  only  sixty-odd  hours 
short  of  the  expiration  of  the  time  limit 
fixed  by  the  charter  conditions  under  which  the 
original  Timanyoni  Ditch  Company  had  ob- 
tained its  franchise,  Bartley  Williams,  lean 
and  sombre-eyed  from  the  strain  he  had  been 
under  for  many  days  and  nights,  saw  the  presi- 
dent's gray  roadster  ploughing  its  way  through 
the  mesa  sand  on  the  approach  to  the  construction 
camp,  and  was  glad. 

"I've  been  trying  all  the  morning  to  squeeze 
out  time  to  get  into  town,"  he  told  Baldwin, 
when  the  roadster  came  to  a  stand  in  front  of 
the  shack  commissary.     "Where  is  Smith  ?" 

The  colonel  threw  up  his  hand  in  a  gesture 
expressive  of  complete  detachment. 

"Don't  ask  me.  John  has  gone  plumb  loco  in 
these  last  two  or  three  days.  It's  as  much  as 
your  life's  worth  to  ask  him  where  he  has  been 
or  where  he  is  going  or  what  he  means  to  do 


next." 


303 


The  Real  Man 

"He  hasn't  stopped  fighting?"  said  the  en- 
gineer, half  aghast  at  the  bare  possibility. 

"Oh,  no;  he's  at  it  harder  than  ever — going 
it  just  a  shaving  too  strong,  is  what  I'd  tell  him, 
if  he'd  let  me  get  near  enough  to  shout  at  him. 
Last  night,  after  the  theatre,  he  went  around  to 
the  Herald  office,  and  the  way  they're  talking  it 
on  the  street,  he  was  aiming  to  shoot  up  the 
whole  newspaper  joint  if  Mark  Allen,  the  editor, 
wouldn't  take  back  a  bunch  of  the  lies  he's  been 
publishing  about  the  High  Line.  It  wound  up 
in  a  scrap  of  some  sort.  I  don't  know  who  got 
the  worst  of  it,  but  John  isn't  crippled  up  any, 
to  speak  of,  this  morning — only  in  his  temper." 

"Smith  puzzles  me  more  than  a  little,"  was 
Williams's  comment.  "It's  just  as  you  say;  for 
the  last  few  days  he's  been  acting  as  if  he  had  a 
grouch  a  mile  long.  Is  it  the  old  sore  threaten- 
ing to  break  out  again? — the  'lame  duck' 
business  ?" 

"I  shouldn't  wonder,"  said  the  colonel  evasively. 
Loyal  to  the  last,  he  was  not  quite  ready  to  share 
with  Williams  the  half-confidence  in  which  Smith 
had  admitted,  by  implication  at  least,  that  the 
waiting  young  woman  at  the  Hophra  House  held 
his  future  between  her  thumb  and  finger. 

Williams  shook  his  head.    "I  guess  we'll  have  to 

304 


The  Megalomaniac 

stand  for  the  grouch,  if  he'll  only  keep  busy.  He 
has  the  hot  end  of  it,  trying  to  stop  the  stampede 
among  the  stockholders,  and  hold  up  the  money 
pinch,  and  keep  Stanton  from  springing  any  new 
razzle  on  us.  We  couldn't  very  well  get  along 
without  him,  right  now,  Colonel.  With  all  due 
respect  to  you  and  the  members  of  the  board,  he 
is  the  fighting  backbone  of  the  whole  outfit." 

"He  is  that,"  was  Baldwin's  ready  admission. 
"He  is  just  what  we've  been  calling  him  from 
the  first,  Bartley — a  three-ply,  dyed-in-the-wool 
wonder  in  his  specialty.  Stanton  hasn't  been 
able  to  make  a  single  move  yet  that  Smith  hasn't 
foreseen  and  discounted.  He  is  fighting  now  like 
a  man  in  the  last  ditch,  and  I  believe  he  thinks 
he  is  in  the  last  ditch.  The  one  time  lately  when 
I  have  had  anything  like  a  straight  talk  with 
him,  he  hinted  at  that  and  gave  me  to  under- 
stand that  he'd  be  willing  to  quit  and  take  his 
medicine  if  he  could  hold  on  until  Timanyoni 
High  Line  wins  out." 

"That  will  be  only  two  days  more,"  said  the 
engineer,  saying  it  as  one  who  has  been  counting 
the  days  in  keen  anxiety.  And  then:  "Stillings 
told  me  yesterday  that  we're  not  going  to  get  an 
extension  of  the  time  limit  from  the  State 
authorities." 

305 


The  Real  Man 

"No;  that  little  fire  went  out,  blink,  just  as 
Smith  said  it  would.  Stanton's  backers  have  the 
political  pull— in  the  State,  as  well  as  in  Wash- 
ington. They're  going  to  hold  us  to  the  letter 
of  the  law." 

"Let  'em  do  it.  We'll  win  out  yet— if  we  don't 
run  up  against  one  or  both  of  the  only  two  things 
I'm  afraid  of  now:  high  water,  or  the  railroad 
call  down." 

"The  water  is  pushing  you  pretty  hard  ?" 
"It's  touch  and  go  every  night  now.  A  warm 
rain  in  the  mountains— well,  I  won't  say  that  it 
would  tear  us  up,  because  I  don't  believe  it  would, 
or  could;  but  it  would  delay  us,  world  without  end." 
"And  the  railroad  grab?  Have  you  heard 
anything  more  about  that?' 

"That  is  what  I  was  trying  to  get  to  town  for; 
to  talk  the  railroad  business  over  with  you  and 
Stillings  and  Smith.  They've  had  a  gang  here 
this  morning;  a  bunch  of  engineers,  with  a 
stranger,  who  gave  his  name  as  Hallowell,  in 
charge.  They  claimed  to  be  verifying  the  old 
survey,  and  Hallowell  notified  me  formally  that 
our  dam  stood  squarely  in  their  right  of  way 
for  a  bridge  crossing  of  the  river." 

"They  didn't  serve  any  papers  on  you,  did 
they?"  inquired  the  colonel  anxiously. 

306 


The  Megalomaniac 

"No;  the  notice  was  verbal.  But  Hallowell 
wound  up  with  a  threat.  He  said,  'You've  had 
due  warning,  legally  and  otherwise,  Mr.  Williams. 
This  is  our  right  of  way,  bought  and  paid  for,  as 
we  can  prove  when  the  matter  gets  into  the  courts. 
You  mustn't  be  surprised  if  we  take  whatever 
steps  may  be  necessary  to  recover  what  belongs 
to  us."' 

"Force?"  queried  the  Missourian,  with  a  glint 
of  the  border-fighter's  fire  in  his  eyes. 

"Maybe.  But  we're  ready  for  that.  Did  you 
know  that  Smith  loaded  half  a  dozen  cases  of 
Winchesters  on  a  motor-truck  yesterday,  and  had 
them  sent  out  here?" 

"No!" 

"He  did — and  told  me  to  say  nothing  about 
it.  It  seems  that  he  ordered  them  some  time 
ago  from  an  arms  agency  in  Denver.  That  fel- 
low foresees  everything,  Colonel." 

Dexter  Baldwin  had  climbed  into  his  car  and 
was  making  ready  to  turn  it  for  the  run  back  to 
town. 

"If  I  were  you,  Bartley,  I  believe  I'd  open  up 
those  gun  boxes  and  pass  the  word  among  as 
many  of  the  men  as  you  think  you  can  trust 
with  rifles  in  their  hands.  I'll  tell  Smith — and 
Bob  Stillings." 

307 


The  Real  Man 

Colonel  Baldwin  made  half  of  his  promise 
good,  the  half  relating  to  the  company's  at- 
torney, as  soon  as  he  reached  Brewster.  But 
the  other  half  had  to  remain  in  abeyance.  Smith 
was  not  in  his  office,  and  no  one  seemed  to  know 
where  he  had  gone.  The  colonel  shrewdly  sus- 
pected that  Miss  Richlander  was  making  another 
draft  upon  the  secretary's  time,  and  he  said  as 
much  to  Starbuck,  later  in  the  day,  when  the 
mine  owner  sauntered  into  the  High  Line  head- 
quarters and  proceeded  to  roll  the  inevitable 
cigarette. 

"Not  any,  this  time,  Colonel,"  was  Starbuck's 
rebuttal.  "You've  missed  it  by  a  whole  row 
of  apple-trees.  Miss  Rich-dollars  is  over  at  the 
hotel.  I  saw  her  at  luncheon  with  the  Stantons 
less  than  an  hour  ago  " 

"You  haven't  seen  Smith,  have  you?" 

"No;  but  I  know  where  he  is.  He's  out  in 
the  country,  somewhere,  taking  the  air  in  Dick 
Maxwell's  runabout.  I  wanted  to  borrow  the 
wagon  myself,  and  Dick  told  me  he  had  already 
lent  it  to  Smith." 

"We're  needing  him,"  said  the  colonel  shortly, 
and  then  he  told  Starbuck  of  the  newest  develop- 
ment in  the  paper-railroad  scheme  of  obstruction. 

From  that  the  talk  drifted  to  a  discussion  of 

308 


The  Megalomaniac 

Kinzie's  latest  attitude.  By  this  time  there  had 
been  an  alarming  number  of  stock  sales  by  small 
holders,  all  of  them  handled  by  the  Brewster 
City  National,  and  it  was  plainly  evident  that 
Kinzie  had  finally  gone  over  to  the  enemy  and 
was  buying — as  cheaply  as  possible — for  some 
unnamed  customer.  This  had  been  Stanton's 
earliest  expedient;  to  "bear"  the  stock  and  to 
buy  up  the  control;  and  he  was  apparently  try- 
ing it  again. 

"If  they  keep  it  up,  they  can  wear  us  out  by 
littles,  and  we'll  break  our  necks  finishing  the 
dam  and  saving  the  franchise  only  to  turn  it 
over  to  them  in  the  round-up,"  said  the  colonel 
dejectedly.  "I've  talked  until  I'm  hoarse,  but 
you  can't  talk  marrow  into  an  empty  bone,  Billy. 
I  used  to  think  we  had  a  fairly  good  bunch  of 
men  in  with  us,  but  in  these  last  few  days  I've 
been  changing  my  mind  at  a  fox-trot.  These 
hedgers  '11  promise  you  anything  on  top  of  earth 
to  your  face,  and  then  go  straight  back  on  you 
the  minute  you're  out  of  sight." 

The  remainder  of  the  day,  up  to  the  time  when 
the  offices  were  closing  and  the  colonel  was  mak- 
ing ready  to  go  home,  passed  without  incident.  In 
Smith's  continued  absence,  Starbuck  had  offered 
to  go  to  the  dam  to  stand  a  night-watch  with 

309 


The  Real  Man 

Williams  against  a  possible  surprise  by  the  right- 
of-way  claimants;  and  Stillings,  who  had  been 
petitioning  for  an  injunction,  came  up  to  re- 
port progress  just  as  Baldwin  was  locking  his 
desk. 

"The  judge  has  taken  it  under  advisement,  but 
that  is  as  far  as  he  would  go  to-day,"  said  the 
lawyer.  "It's  simply  a  bald  steal,  of  course,  and 
unless  they  ring  in  crooked  evidence  on  us,  we 
can  show  it  up  in  court.  But  that  would  mean 
more  delay,  and  delay  is  the  one  thing  we  can't 
stand.  I'm  sworn  to  uphold  the  law,  and  I  can't 
counsel  armed  resistance.  Just  the  same,  I  hope 
Williams  has  his  nerve  with  him." 

"He  has;  and  I  haven't  lost  mine,  yet,"  snapped 
a  voice  at  the  door;  and  Smith  came  in,  dust- 
covered  and  swarthy  with  the  grime  of  the  wind- 
swept grass-lands.  Out  of  the  pocket  of  his  driving 
coat  he  drew  a  thick  packet  of  papers  and  slapped 
it  upon  the  drawn-down  curtain  of  Baldwin's 
desk.  "There  you  are,"  he  went  on  gratingly. 
"Now  you  can  tell  Mr.  David  Kinzie  to  go 
straight  to  hell  with  his  stock-pinching,  and  the 
more  money  he  puts  into  it,  the  more  somebody's 
going  to  lose  !  " 

"My  Lord,  John! — what  have  you  done?" 
demanded  Baldwin. 

310 


The  Megalomaniac 

"I've  shown  'em  what  it  means  to  go  up  against 
a  winner!"  was  the  half-triumphant,  half-savage 
exultation.  "I  have  put  a  crimp  in  that  fence- 
climbing  banker  of  yours  that  will  last  him  for 
one  while !  I've  secured  thirty-day  options,  at 
par,  on  enough  High  Line  stock  to  swing  a  clear 
majority  if  Kinzie  should  buy  up  every  other 
share  there  is  outstanding.  It  has  taken  me  all 
day,  and  Fve  driven  a  thousand  miles,  but  the 
thing  is  done.,, 

"But,  John!  If  anything  should  happen,  and 
we'd  have  to  make  good  on  those  options.  .  .  . 
The  Lord  have  mercy !  It  would  break  the  last 
man  of  us!" 

"We're  not  going  to  let  things  happen!"  was 
the  gritting  rejoinder.  "I've  told  you  both  a 
dozen  times  that  I'm  in  this  thing  to  win  !  You 
take  care  of  those  options,  Stillings;  they're 
worth  a  million  dollars  to  somebody.  Lock  'em 
up  somewhere  and  then  forget  where  they  are. 
Now  I'm  going  to  hunt  up  Mr.  Crawford  Stan- 
ton— before  I  eat  or  sleep  !" 

"Easy,  John;  hold  up  a  minute!"  the  colonel 
broke  in  soothingly;  and  Stillings,  more  practical, 
closed  the  office  door  silently  and  put  his  back 
against  it.  "This  is  a  pretty  sudden  country, 
but  there  is  some  sort  of  a  limit,  you  know,"  the 

311 


The  Real  Man 

big  Missourian  went  on.  "What's  your  idea  in 
going  to  Stanton  ?" 

"I  mean  to  give  him  twelve  hours  in  which  to 
pack  his  trunk  and  get  out  of  Brewster  and  the 
Timanyoni.  If  he  hasn't  disappeared  by  to- 
morrow morning " 

Stillings  was  signalling  in  dumb  show  to  Bald- 
win. He  had  quietly  opened  the  door  and  was 
crooking  his  finger  and  making  signs  over  his 
shoulder  toward  the  corridor.  Baldwin  saw  what 
was  wanted,  and  immediately  shot  his  desk  cover 
open  and  turned  on  the  lights. 

"That  last  lot  of  steel  and  cement  vouchers 
was  made  out  yesterday,  John, "  he  said,  slipping 
the  rubber  band  from  a  file  of  papers  in  the  desk. 
"If  you'll  take  time  to  sit  down  here  and  run 
'em  over,  and  put  your  name  on  'em,  I'll  hold 
Martin  long  enough  to  let  him  get  the  checks  in 
to-night's  mail.  Those  fellows  in  St.  Louis  act 
as  if  they  are  terribly  scared  they  won't  get  their 
money  quick  enough,  and  I've  been  holding  the 
papers  for  you  all  day.  I'll  be  back  after  a 
little."* 

Smith  dragged  up  the  president's  big  swing- 
chair  and  planted  himself  in  it,  and  an  instant 
later  he  was  lost  to  everything  save  the  columns 
of  figures  on  the  vouchers.     Stillings  had  let  him- 

312 


The  Megalomaniac 

self  out,  and  when  the  colonel  followed  him,  the 
lawyer  cautiously  closed  the  door  of  the  private 
office,  and  edged  Baldwin  into  the  corridor. 

"We've  mighty  near  got  a  madman  to  deal 
with  in  there,  Colonel,"  he  whispered,  when  the 
two  were  out  of  ear-shot.  "I  was  watching  his 
eyes  when  he  said  that  about  Stanton,  and  they 
fairly  blazed.  I  meant  to  tell  you  more  about 
that  racket  last  night  in  the  Herald  office;  I  heard 
the  inside  of  it  this  afternoon  from  Murphey. 
Smith  went  in  and  held  the  whole  outfit  up  with 
a  gun,  and  Murphey  says  he  beat  Allen  over  the 
head  with  it.  He's  going  to  kill  somebody,  if 
we  don't  look  out." 

Baldwin  was  shaking  his  head  dubiously. 

"He's  acting  like  a  locoed  thoroughbred  that's 
gone  outlaw,"  he  said.  "Do  you  reckon  he's 
sure-enough  crazy,  Bob?" 

"Only  in  the  murder  nerve.  This  deal  with 
the  options  shows  that  he's  all  to  the  good  on  the 
business  side.  That  was  the  smoothest  trick 
that's  been  turned  in  any  stage  of  this  dodging 
fight  with  the  big  fellows.  It  simply  knocks  Kin- 
zie's  rat-gnawing  game  dead.  If  there  were  only 
somebody  who  could  calm  Smith  down  a  little 
and  bring  him  to  reason — somebody  near  enough 
to  him  to  dig  down  under  his  shell  and  get  at  the 

3J3 


The  Real  Man 

real  man  that  used  to  be  there  when  he  first  took 

hold  with  us " 

"A  woman?"  queried  Baldwin,  frowning  dis- 
approval in  anticipation  of  what  Stillings  might 
be  going  to  suggest. 

"A  woman  for  choice,  of  course.  I  was  think- 
ing of  this  young  woman  over  at  the  Hophra 
House;  the  one  he  has  been  running  around  with 
so  much  during  the  past  few  days.  She  is  evi- 
dently an  old  flame  of  his,  and  anybody  can  see 
with  half  an  eye  that  she  has  a  pretty  good  grip 
on  him.  Suppose  we  go  across  the  street  and 
give  her  an  invitation  to  come  and  do  a  little 
missionary  work  on  Smith.  She  looks  level- 
headed and  sensible  enough  to  take  it  the  way  it's 
meant. " 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  colonel's  heart- 
felt relief  at  Stillings's  suggestion  of  Miss  Rich- 
lander  instead  of  another  woman  went  some  little 
distance  toward  turning  the  scale  for  the  trans- 
planted Missourian.  Stillings  was  a  lawyer  and 
had  no  scruples,  but  the  colonel  had  them  in  just 
proportion  to  his  Southern  birth  and  breeding. 

"I  don't  like  to  drag  a  woman  into  it,  any  way 
or  shape,  Bob,"  he  protested;  and  he  would  have 
gone  on  to  say  that  he  had  good  reason  to  believe 
that  Miss  Richlander's  influence  over  Smith  might 

3H 


The  Megalomaniac 

not  be  at  all  of  the  meliorating  sort,  but  Stillings 
cut  him  short. 

"There  need  be  no  'dragging.'  The  young 
woman  doubtless  knows  the  business  situation 
as  well  as  we  do — he  has  probably  told  her  all 
about  it — and  if  she  cares  half  as  much  for  Smith 
as  she  seems  to,  she'll  be  glad  to  chip  in  and  help 
to  cool  him  down.  We  can  be  perfectly  plain  and 
outspoken  with  her,  I'm  sure;  she  evidently 
knows  Smith  a  whole  lot  better  than  we  do.  It's 
a  chance,  and  we'd  better  try  it.  He's  good  for 
half  an  hour  or  so  with  those  vouchers." 

Two  minutes  later,  Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin, 
with  Stillings  at  his  elbow,  was  at  the  clerk's  desk 
in  the  Hophra  House  sending  a  card  up  to  Miss 
Richlander's  rooms.  Five  minutes  beyond  that, 
the  boy  came  back  to  say  that  Miss  Richlander 
was  out  auto-driving  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Stanton. 
The  clerk,  knowing  Baldwin  well,  eyebrowed  his 
regret  and  suggested  a  wait  of  a  few  minutes. 

"They'll  certainly  be  in  before  long,"  he  said. 
"Mrs.  Stanton  has  never  been  known  to  miss 
the  dinner  hour  since  she  came  to  us.  She  is 
as  punctual  as  the  clock." 

Baldwin,  still  ill  at  ease  and  reluctant,  led  the 
way  to  a  pair  of  chairs  in  the  writing  alcove  of 
the  lobby;    two  chairs  commanding  a  clear  view 

315 


The  Real  Man 

of  the  street  entrance.  Sitting  down  to  wait 
with  what  patience  they  could  summon,  neither 
of  the  two  men  saw  a  gray  automobile,  driven  by 
a  young  woman,  come  to  a  stand  before  the  en- 
trance of  the  Kinzie  Building  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  street.  And,  missing  this,  they  missed 
equally  the  sight  of  the  young  woman  alighting 
from  the  machine  and  disappearing  through  the 
swinging  doors  opening  into  the  bank  building's 
elevator  lobby. 


316 


XXIII 

The  Arrow  to  the  Mark 

SMITH,  concentrating  abstractedly,  as  his 
habit  was,  upon  the  work  in  hand,  was  still 
deep  in  the  voucher-auditing  when  the  office  door 
was  opened  and  a  small  shocked  voice  said: 
"Oh,  wooh!  how  you  startled  me!  I  saw  the 
light,  and  I  supposed,  of  course,  it  was  Colonel- 
daddy.     Where  is  he?" 

Smith  pushed  the  papers  aside  and  looked  up 
scowling. 

"Your  father  ?  He  was  here  a  minute  ago, 
with  Stillings.     Isn't  he  out  in  the  main  office?" 

"No,  there  is  no  one  there." 

"Martin  is  there,"  he  said,  contradicting  her 
bluntly.  And  then:  "Your  father  said  he'd  be 
back.     You've  come  to  take  him  home  ?" 

She  nodded  and  came  to  sit  in  a  chair  at  the 
desk-end,  saying: 

"Don't  let  me  interrupt  you,  please.  I'll  be 
quiet." 

"I   don't  mean  to  let   anything  interrupt  me 

317 


The  Real  Man 

until  I  have  finished  what  I  have  undertaken  to 
do;    I'm  past  all  that,  now." 

"So  you  told  me  two  evenings  ago,"  she  re- 
minded him  gently,  adding:  "And  I  have  heard 
about  what  you  did  last  night." 

"About  the  newspaper  fracas  ?  You  don't 
approve  of  anything  like  that,  of  course.  Neither 
did  I,  once.  But  you  were  right  in  what  you  said 
the  other  evening  out  at  the  dam;  there  is  no 
middle  way.  You  know  what  the  animal  tamers 
tell  us  about  the  beasts.  I've  had  my  taste  of 
blood.  There  are  a  good  many  men  in  this  world 
who  need  killing.  Crawford  Stanton  is  one  of 
them,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  Mr.  David  Kinzie 
isn't  another." 

"I  can't  hear  what  you  say  when  you  talk  like 
that,"  she  objected,  looking  past  him  with  the 
gray  eyes  veiled. 

"Do  you  want  me  to  lie  down  and  let  them  put 
the  steam-roller  over  me  ?"  he  demanded  irritably. 
"Is  that  your  ideal  of  the  perfect  man  ?" 

"I  didn't  say  any  such  thing  as  that,  did 
I?" 

"Perhaps  not,  in  so  many  words.  But  you 
meant  it." 

"What  I  said,  and  what  I  meant,  had  nothing 
at  all  to  do  with  Timanyoni  High  Line  and  its 

318 


The  Arrow  to  the  Mark 

fight  for  life,"  she  said  calmly,  recalling  the  wan- 
dering gaze  and  letting  him  see  her  eyes.  "I  was 
thinking  altogether  of  one  man's  attitude  toward 
his  world." 

"That  was  night  before  last,"  he  put  in  soberly. 
"I've  gone  a  long  way  since  night  before  last, 
Corona." 

"I  know  you  have.  Why  doesn't  daddy  come 
back?" 

"He'll  come  soon  enough.  You're  not  afraid 
to  be  here  alone  with  me,  are  you  ?" 

"No;  but  anybody  might  be  afraid  of  the  man 
you  are  going  to  be." 

His  laugh  was  as  mirthless  as  the  creaking  of 
a  rusty  door-hinge. 

"You  needn't  put  it  in  the  future  tense.  I 
have  already  broken  with  whatever  traditions 
there  were  left  to  break  with.  Last  night  I 
threatened  to  kill  Allen,  and,  perhaps,  I  should 
have  done  it  if  he  hadn't  begged  like  a  dog  and 
dragged  his  wife  and  children  into  it." 

"I  know,"  she  acquiesced,  and  again  she  was 
looking  past  him. 

"And  that  isn't  all.  Yesterday,  Kinzie  set  a 
trap  for  me  and  baited  it  with  one  of  his  clerks. 
For  a  little  while  it  seemed  as  if  the  only  way  to 
spring  the  trap  was  for  me  to  go  after  the  clerk 

319 


The  Real  Man 

and  put  a  bullet  through  him.     It  wasn't  neces- 
sary, as  it  turned  out,  but  if  it  had  been " 

"Oh,  you  couldn't!"  she  broke  in  quickly. 
"I  can't  believe  that  of  you  !" 

"You  think  I  couldn't?  Let  me  tell  you  of  a 
thing  that  I  have  done.  Night  before  last,  in 
less  than  an  hour  after  you  sat  and  talked  with 
me  at  the  dam,  Verda  Richlander  had  a  wire 
from  a  young  fellow  who  wants  to  marry  her. 
He  had  found  out  that  she  was  here  in  Brewster, 
and  the  wire  was  to  tell  her  that  he  was  coming 
in  that  night  on  the  delayed  '  Flyer.'  She  asked 
me  to  meet  him  and  tell  him  she  had  gone  to  bed. 
He  is  a  miserable  little  wretch;  a  sort  of  sham 
reprobate;  and  she  has  never  cared  for  him, 
except  to  keep  him  dangling  with  a  lot  of  others. 
I  told  her  I  wouldn't  meet  him,  and  she  knew 
very  well  that  I  couldn't  meet  him — and  stay 
out  of  jail.  Are  you  listening?" 
1  m  trying  to. 

"It  was  the  pinch,  and  I  wasn't  big  enough — 
in  your  sense  of  the  word — to  meet  it.  I  saw  what 
would  happen.  If  Tucker  Jibbey  came  here, 
Stanton  would  pounce  upon  him  at  once;  and 
Jibbey,  with  a  drink  or  two  under  his  belt,  would 
tell  all  he  knew.  I  fought  it  all  out  while  I  was 
waiting   for  the   train.     It  was   Jibbey's    efface- 

320 


The  Arrow  to  the  Mark 

ment,  or  the  end  of  the  world  for  me,  and  for 
Timanyoni  High  Line." 

Dexter  Baldwin's  daughter  was  not  of  those 
who  shriek  and  faint  at  the  apparition  of  horror. 
But  the  gray  eyes  were  dilating  and  her  breath 
was  coming  in  little  gasps  when  she  said: 

"I  can't  believe  it!  You  are  not  going  to 
tell  me  that  you  met  this  man  as  a  friend,  and 
then " 

"No;  it  didn't  quite  come  to  a  murder  in  cold 
blood,  though  I  thought  it  might.  I  had  Max- 
well's runabout,  and  I  got  Jibbey  into  it.  He 
thought  I  was  going  to  drive  him  to  the  hotel. 
After  we  got  out  of  town  he  grew  suspicious, 
and  there  was  a  struggle  in  the  auto.  I — I  had  to 
beat  him  over  the  head  to  make  him  keep  quiet; 
I  thought  for  the  moment  that  I  had  killed  him, 
and  I  knew,  then,  just  how  far  I  had  gone  on 
the  road  I've  been  travelling  ever  since  a  certain 
night  in  the  middle  of  last  May.  The  proof  was 
in  the  way  I  felt;  I  wasn't  either  sorry  or  horror- 
stricken;  I  was  merely  relieved  to  think  that  he 
wouldn't  trouble  me,  or  clutter  up  the  world  with 
his  worthless  presence  any  longer." 

"But  that  wasn't  your  real  self!"  she  expos- 
tulated. 

"What  was  it,  then?" 
321 


The  Real  Man 

"I  don't  know — I  only  know  that  it  wasn't 
you.     But  tell  me:   did  he  die?" 

"No." 

"What  have  you  done  with  him?" 

"Do  you  know  the  old  abandoned  Wire-Silver 
mine  at  Little  Butte?" 

"I  knew  it  before  it  was  abandoned,  yes." 

"I  was  out  there  one  Sunday  afternoon  with 
Starbuck.  The  mine  is  bulkheaded  and  locked, 
but  one  of  the  keys  on  my  ring  fitted  the  lock, 
and  Starbuck  and  I  went  in  and  stumbled  around 
for  a  while  in  the  dark  tunnels.  I  took  Jibbey 
there  and  locked  him  up.     He's  there  now." 

"Alone  in  that  horrible  place — and  without 
food?" 

"Alone,  yes;  but  I  went  out  yesterday  and 
put  a  basket  of  food  where  he  could  get  it." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  him  ?" 

"I  am  going  to  leave  him  there  until  after  I 
have  put  Stanton  and  Kinzie  and  the  other  buc- 
caneers safely  out  of  business.  When  that  is 
done,  he  can  go;    and  I'll  go,  too." 

She  had  risen,  and  at  the  summing-up  she  turned 
from  him  and  went  aside  to  the  one  window  to 
stand  for  a  long  minute  gazing  down  into  the 
electric-lighted  street.  When  she  came  back  her 
lips  were  pressed  together  and  she  was  very  pale. 

322 


The  Arrow  to  the  Mark 

"When  I  was  in  school,  our  old  psychology 
professor  used  to  try  to  tell  us  about  the  under- 
man;  the  brute  that  lies  dormant  inside  of  us 
and  is  kept  down  only  by  reason  and  the  super- 
man. I  never  believed  it  was  anything  more 
than  a  fine-spun  theory — until  now.  But  now  I 
know  it  is  true." 

He  spread  his  hands. 

"I  can't  help  it,  can  I  ?" 

"The  man  that  you  are  now  can't  help  it;  no. 
But  the  man  that  you  could  be — if  he  would  only 
come  back — "  she  stopped  with  a  little  uncon- 
trollable shudder  and  sat  down  again,  covering 
her  face  with  her  hands. 

"I'm  going  to  turn  Jibbey  loose — after  I'm 
through,"  he  vouchsafed. 

She  took  her  hands  away  and  blazed  up  at 
him  suddenly,  with  her  face  aflame. 

"Yes!  after  you  are  safe;  after  there  is  no 
longer  any  risk  in  it  for  you  !  That  is  worse  than 
if  you  had  killed  him — worse  for  you,  I  mean. 
Oh,  cant  you  see  ?  It's  the  very  depth  of  cowardly 
infamy !" 

He  smiled  sourly.  "You  think  I'm  a  coward  ? 
They've  been  calling  me  everything  else  but  that 
in  the  past  few  days." 

"You  are  a  coward  !"  she  flashed  back.     "You 

323 


The  Real  Man 

have  proved  it.  You  daren't  go  out  to  Little 
Butte  to-night  and  get  that  man  and  bring  him  to 
Brewster  while  there  is  yet  time  for  him  to  do 
whatever  it  is  that  you  are  afraid  he  will  do !" 

Was  it'the  quintessence  of  feminine  subtlety,  or 
only  honest  rage  and  indignation,  that  told  her 
how  to  aim  the  armor-piercing  arrow  ?  God,  who 
alone  knows  the  secret  workings  of  the  woman 
heart  and  brain,  can  tell.  But  the  arrow  sped 
true  and  found  its  mark.  Smith  got  up  stiffly 
out  of  the  big  swing-chair  and  stood  glooming 
down  at  her. 

"You  think  I  did  it  for  myself  ?— just  to  save 
my  own  worthless  hide  ?  I'll  show  you;  show 
you  all  the  things  that  you  say  are  now  impos- 
sible.    Did  you  bring  the  gray  roadster?" 

She  nodded  briefly. 

"Your  father  is  coming  back;  I  hear  the  ele- 
vator-bell. I  am  going  to  take  the  car,  and  I  don't 
want  to  meet  him.    Will  you  say  what  is  needful  ? " 

She  nodded  again,  and  he  went  out  quickly. 
It  was  only  a  few  steps  down  the  corridor  to  the 
elevator  landing,  and  the  stair  circled  the  caged 
elevator-shaft  to  the  ground  floor.  Smith  halted 
in  the  darkened  corner  of  the  stairway  long 
enough  to  make  sure  that  the  colonel,  with  Stil- 
lings   and   a  woman  in   an   automobile  coat   and 

324 


The  Arrow  to  the  Mark 

veil — a  woman  who  figured  for  him  in  the  pass- 
ing glance  as  Corona's  mother — got  off  at  the 
office  floor.  Then  he  ran  down  to  the  street 
level,  cranked  the  gray  roadster  and  sprang  in 
to  send  the  car  rocketing  westward. 


325 


XXIV 
A  Little  Leaven 

THE  final  touch  of  sunset  pink  had  long 
since  faded  from  the  high  western  sky-line, 
and  the  summer-night  stars  served  only  to  make 
the  darkness  visible  along  the  road  which  had 
once  been  the  stage  route  down  the  Timanyoni 
River  and  across  to  the  mining-camp  of  Red 
Butte.  Smith,  slackening  speed  for  the  first  time 
in  the  swift  valley-crossing  flight,  twisted  the 
gray  roadster  sharply  to  the  left  out  of  the  road, 
and  eased  it  across  the  railroad  track  to  send  it 
lurching  and  bumping  over  the  rotting  ties  of 
an  old  branch-line  spur  from  which  the  steel  had 
been  removed,  and  which  ran  in  a  course  roughly 
paralleling  the  eastward-facing  front  of  a  forested 
mountain. 

Four  miles  from  the  turn  out  of  the  main  road, 
at  a  point  on  the  spur  right  of  way  where  a 
washed-out  culvert  made  farther  progress  with  the 
car  impossible,  he  shut  off  the  power  and  got  down 
to  continue  his  journey  afoot.  Following  the  line 
of  the  abandoned  spur,  he  came,  at  the  end  of 

326 


A  Little  Leaven 

another  mile,  to  the  deserted  shacks  of  the  mining 
plant  which  the  short  branch  railroad  had  been 
built  to  serve;  a  roofless  power-house,  empty  ore 
platforms  dry-rotting  in  disuse,  windowless  bunk 
shanties,  and  the  long,  low  bulk  of  a  log-built 
commissary.  The  mine  workings  were  tunnel- 
driven  in  the  mountainside,  and  a  crooked  ore 
track  led  out  to  them.  Smith  followed  the  ore 
track  until  he  came  to  the  bulkheaded  entrance 
flanked  by  empty  storage  bins,  and  to  the  lock 
of  a  small  door  framed  in  the  bulkheading  he 
applied  a  key. 

It  was  pitch  dark  beyond  the  door,  and  the 
silence  was  like  that  of  the  grave.  Smith  had 
brought  a  candle  on  his  food-carrying  visit  of 
the  day  before,  and,  groping  in  its  hiding-place 
just  outside  of  the  door,  he  found  and  lighted  it, 
holding  it  sheltered  in  his  cupped  hand  as  he 
stepped  into  the  black  void  beyond  the  bulkhead. 
With  the  feeble  flame  making  little  more  than  a 
dim  yellow  nimbus  in  the  gloom,  he  looked  about 
him.  There  was  no  sign  of  occupancy  save  Jib- 
bey's  suitcase  lying  where  it  had  been  flung  on 
the  night  of  the  assisted  disappearance.  But  of 
the  man  himself  there  was  no  trace. 

Smith  stumbled  forward  into  the  black  depths 
and  the  chill  of  the  place  laid  hold  upon  him  and 

327 


The  Real  Man 

shook  him  like  the  premonitory  shiver  of  an  ap- 
proaching ague.  What  if  the  darkness  and  soli- 
tude had  been  too  much  for  Jibbey's  untried 
fortitude  and  the  poor  wretch  had  crawled  away 
into  the  dismal  labyrinth  to  lose  himself  and  die  ? 
The  searcher  stopped  and  listened.  In  some  far- 
distant  ramification  of  the  mine  he  could  hear 
the  drip,  drip,  of  underground  water,  but  when 
he  shouted  there  was  no  response  save  that  made 
by  the  echoes  moaning  and  whispering  in  the 
stoped-out  caverns  overhead. 

Shielding  the  flickering  candle  again,  Smith 
went  on,  pausing  at  each  branching  side-cutting 
to  throw  the  light  into  the  pockets  of  darkness. 
Insensibly  he  quickened  his  pace  until  he  was 
hastening  blindly  through  a  maze  of  tunnels  and 
cross  driftings,  deeper  and  still  deeper  into  the 
bowels  of  the  great  mountain.  Coming  suddenly 
at  the  last  into  the  chamber  of  the  dripping  water, 
he  found  what  he  was  searching  for,  and  again 
the  ague  chill  shook  him.  There  were  no  ap- 
parent signs  of  life  in  the  sodden,  muck-begrimed 
figure  lying  in  a  crumpled  heap  among  the  water 
pools. 

"Jibbey!"  he  called:  and  then  again,  ignoring 
the  unnerving,  awe-inspiring  echoes  rustling  like 
flying  bats  in  the  cavernous  overspaces:  "Jibbey!" 

328 


A  Little  Leaven 

The  sodden  heap  bestirred  itself  slowly  and 
became  a  man  sitting  up  to  blink  helplessly  at 
the  light  and  supporting  himself  on  one  hand. 

"Is  that  you,  Monty?"  said  a  voice  tremulous 
and  broken;  and  then:  "I  can't  see.  The  light 
blinds  me.     Have  you  come  to  fl-finish  the  job  ?" 

"I  have  come  to  take  you  out  of  this;  to 
take  you  back  with  me  to  Brewster.  Get  up  and 
come  on." 

The  victim  of  Smith's  ruthlessness  struggled 
stiffly  to  his  feet.  Never  much  more  than  a 
physical  weakling,  and  with  his  natural  strength 
wasted  by  a  life  of  dissipation,  the  blow  on  the 
head  with  the  pistol  butt  and  the  forty-eight 
hours  of  sharp  hardship  and  privation  had  cut 
deeply  into  his  scanty  reserves. 

"Did — did  Verda  send  you  to  do  it?"  he 
queried. 

"No;  she  doesn't  know  where  you  are.  She 
thinks  you  stopped  over  somewhere  on  your 
way  west.  Come  along,  if  you  want  to  go  back 
with  me." 

Jibbey  stumbled  away  a  step  or  two  and  flat- 
tened himself  against  the  cavern  wall.  His  eyes 
were  still  staring  and  his  lips  were  drawn  back  to 
show  his  teeth. 

"Hold  on  a  minute,"  he  jerked  out.     "You're 

329 


The  Real  Man 

not — not  going  to  wipe  it  all  out  as  easy  as  that. 
You've  taken  my  gun  away  from  me,  but  I've 
got  my  two  hands  yet.  Stick  that  candle  in  a 
hole  in  the  wall  and  look  out  for  yourself.  I'm 
telling  you,  right  now,  that  one  or  the  other  of 
us  is  going  to  stay  here — and  stay  dead  !" 

"Don't  be  a  fool!"  Smith  broke  in.  "I  didn't 
come  here  to  scrap  with  you." 

"You'd  better — and  you'd  better  make  a  job 
of  it  while  you're  about  it!"  shrieked  the  cast- 
away, lost  now  to  everything  save  the  biting  sense 
of  his  wrongs.  "You've  put  it  all  over  me — 
knocked  my  chances  with  Verda  Richlander  and 
shut  me  up  here  in  this  hell-hole  to  go  mad-dog 
crazy !  If  you  let  me  get  out  of  here  alive  I'll 
pay  you  back,  if  it's  the  last  thing  I  ever  do  on 
top  of  God's  green  earth !  You'll  go  back  to 
Lawrenceville  with  the  bracelets  on !  You'll — " 
red  rage  could  go  no  farther  in  mere  words  and 
he  flung  himself  in  feeble  fierceness  upon  Smith, 
clutching  and  struggling  and  waking  the  grew- 
some  echoes  again  with  frantic,  meaningless  male- 
dictions. 

Smith  dropped  the  candle  to  defend  himself, 
but  he  did  not  strike  back;  wrapping  the  mad- 
man in  a  pinioning  grip,  he  held  him  helpless 
until  the  vengeful  ecstasy  had  exhausted  itself. 

330 


A  Little  Leaven 

When  it  was  over,  and  Jibbey  had  been  released, 
gasping  and  sobbing,  to  stagger  back  against  the 
tunnel  wall,  Smith  groped  for  the  candle  and 
found  and  relighted  it. 

"Tucker,"  he  said  gently,  "you  are  more  of  a 
man  than  I  took  you  to  be — a  good  bit  more. 
And  you  needn't  break  your  heart  because  you 
can't  handle  a  fellow  who  is  perfectly  fit,  and  who 
weighs  half  as  much  again  as  you  do.  Now  that 
you're  giving  me  a  chance  to  say  it,  I  can  tell  you 
that  Verda  Richlander  doesn't  figure  in  this  at 
all.  I'm  not  going  to  marry  her,  and  she  didn't 
come  out  here  in  the  expectation  of  finding 
me." 

"Then  what  does  figure  in  it?"  was  the  dry- 
lipped  query. 

"It  was  merely  a  matter  of  self-preservation. 
There  are  men  in  Brewster  who  would  pay  high 
for  the  information  you  might  give  them  about 
me. 

"You  might  have  given  me  a  hint  and  a  chance, 
Monty.    I'm  not  all  dog!" 

"That's  all  past  and  gone.  I  didn't  give  you 
your  chance,  but  I'm  going  to  give  it  to  you  now. 
Let's  go — if  you're  fit  to  try  it." 

"Wait  a  minute.  If  you  think,  because  you 
didn't  pull  your  gun  just  now  and  drop  me  and 

331 


The  Real  Man 

leave  me  to  rot  in  this  hole,  if  you  think  that 
squares  the  deal " 

"I'm  not  making  any  conditions,"  Smith  in- 
terposed. "There  are  a  number  of  telegraph 
offices  in  Brewster,  and  for  at  least  two  days 
longer  I  shall  always  be  within  easy  reach." 

Jibbey's  anger  flared  up  once  more. 

"You  think  I  won't  do  it?  You  think  I'll  be 
so  danged  glad  to  get  to  some  place  where  they 
sell  whiskey  that  I'll  forget  all  about  it  and  let 
you  off?  Don't  you  make  any  mistake,  Monty 
Smith  !  You  can't  knock  me  on  the  head  and 
lock  me  up  as  if  I  were  a  yellow  dog.    I'll  fix  you  ! " 

Smith  made  no  reply.  Linking  his  free  arm  in 
Jibbey's,  he  led  the  way  through  the  mazes,  stop- 
ping at  the  tunnel  mouth  to  blow  out  the  candle 
and  to  pick  up  Jibbey's  suitcase.  In  the  open 
air  the  freed  captive  flung  his  arms  abroad  and 
drank  in  a  deep  breath  of  the  clean,  sweet,  out- 
door air.  "God!"  he  gasped;  "how  good  it  is!" 
and  after  that  he  tramped  in  sober  silence  at 
Smith's  heels  until  they  reached  the  automobile. 

It  took  some  little  careful  manoeuvring  to  get 
the  roadster  successfully  turned  on  the  railroad 
embankment,  and  Jibbey  stood  aside  while  Smith 
worked  with  the  controls.  Past  this,  he  climbed 
into  the  spare  seat,  still  without  a  word,  and  the 

332 


A  Little  Leaven 

rough  four  miles  over  the  rotting  cross-ties  were 
soon  left  behind.  At  the  crossing  of  the  railroad 
main  track  and  the  turn  into  the  highway,  the 
river,  bassooning  deep-toned  among  its  bowlders, 
was  near  at  hand,  and  Jibbey  spoke  for  the  first 
time  since  they  had  left  the  mine  mouth. 

"I'm  horribly  thirsty,  Monty.  That  water 
in  the  mine  had  copper  or  something  in  it,  and 
I  couldn't  drink  it.  You  didn't  know  that,  did 
you  ? — when  you  put  me  in  there,  I  mean  ?  Won't 
you  stop  the  car  and  let  me  go  stick  my  face  in 
that  river  ?" 

The  car  was  brought  to  a  stand  and  Jibbey 
got  out  to  scramble  down  the  river  bank  in  the 
starlight.  Obeying  some  inner  prompting  which 
he  did  not  stop  to  analyze,  Smith  left  his  seat 
behind  the  wheel  and  walked  over  to  the  edge 
of  the  embankment  where  Jibbey  had  descended. 
The  path  to  the  river's  margin  was  down  the  steep 
slope  of  a  rock  fill  made  in  widening  the  highway 
to  keep  it  clear  of  the  railroad  track.  With  the 
glare  of  the  roadster's  acetylenes  turned  the  other 
way,  Smith  could  see  Jibbey  at  the  foot  of  the 
slope  lowering  himself  face  downward  on  his 
propped  arms  to  reach  the  water.  Then,  for  a 
single  instant,  the  murderous  underman  rose  up 
and  laughed.     For  in  that  instant,  Jibbey,  care- 

333 


The  Real  Man 

less  in  his  thirst,  lost  his  balance  and  went  head- 
long into  the  torrent. 

A  battling  eon  had  passed  before  Smith,  bat- 
tered, beaten,  and  half-strangled,  succeeded  in 
landing  the  unconscious  thirst-quencher  on  a 
shelving  bank  three  hundred  yards  below  the 
stopped  automobile.  After  that  there  was  another 
eon  in  which  he  completely  forgot  his  own  bruis- 
ings  while  he  worked  desperately  over  the  drowned 
man,  raising  and  lowering  the  limp  arms  while  he 
strove  to  recall  more  of  the  resuscitative  directions 
given  in  the  Lawrenceville  Athletic  Club's  first- 
aid  drills. 

In  good  time,  after  an  interval  so  long  that  it 
seemed  endless  to  the  despairing  first-aider,  the 
breath  came  back  into  the  reluctant  lungs.  Jib- 
bey  coughed,  choked,  gasped,  and  sat  up.  His 
teeth  were  chattering,  and  he  was  chilled  to  the 
bone  by  the  sudden  plunge  into  the  cold  snow 
water,  but  he  was  unmistakably  alive. 

"What — what  happened  to  me,  Monty  ?"  he 
shuddered.    "Did  I  lose  my  grip  and  tumble  in  ?" 

"You  did,  for  a  fact." 

"And  you  went  in  after  me  ?" 

"Of  course." 

"No,  by  Gad  !  It  wasn't  'of  course' — not  by  a 
long  shot !    All  you  had   to   do  was  to   let   me 

334 


A  Little  Leaven 

go,  and  the  score — your  score — would  have  been 
wiped  out  for  good  and  all.  Why  didn't  you  do 
it?" 

"Because  I  should  have  lost  my  bet." 

"Your  bet?" 

"Well,  yes.  It  wasn't  exactly  a  bet;  but  I 
promised  somebody  that  I  would  bring  you  back 
to  Brewster  to-night,  alive  and  well,  and  able  to 
send  a  telegram.  And  if  I  had  let  you  drown 
yourself,  I  should  have  lost  out." 

"You  promised  somebody? — not  Verda?" 

"No;   somebody  else." 

Jibbey  tried  to  get  upon  his  feet,  couldn't 
quite  compass  it,  and  sat  down  again. 

"I  don't  believe  a  word  of  it,"  he  mumbled, 
loose-lipped.  "You  did  it  because  you're  not  so 
danged  tough  and  hard-hearted  as  you  thought 
you  were."  And  then:  "Give  me  a  lift,  Monty, 
and  get  me  to  the  auto.  I  guess — I'm  about — 
all  in." 

Smith  half  led,  half  carried  his  charge  up  to 
the  road  and  then  left  him  to  go  and  back  the 
car  over  the  three  hundred-odd  yards  of  the 
interspace.  A  final  heave  lifted  Jibbey  into  his 
place,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  Colonel  Dexter 
Baldwin's  roadster  never  made  better  time  than 
it  did  on  the  race  which  finally  brought  the  glow 

335 


The  Real  Man 

of  the  Brewster  town  lights  reddening  against  the 
eastern  sky. 

At  the  hotel  Smith  helped  his  dripping  pas- 
senger out  of  the  car,  made  a  quick  rush  with  him 
to  an  elevator,  and  so  up  to  his  own  rooms  on  the 
fourth  floor. 

"Strip !"  he  commanded;  "get  out  of  those 
wet  rags  and  tumble  into  the  bath.  Make  it  as 
hot  as  you  can  stand  it.  I'll  go  down  and  register 
you  and  have  your  trunk  sent  up  from  the  station. 
You  have  a  trunk,  haven't  you  i" 

Jibbey  fished  a  soaked  card  baggage-check  out 
of  his  pocket  and  passed  it  over. 

"You're  as  bad  ofF  as  I  am,  Monty,"  he  pro- 
tested. "Wait  and  get  some  dry  things  on  before 
you  go." 

"I'll  be  up  again  before  you're  out  of  the  tub. 
I  suppose  you'd  like  to  put  yourself  outside  of  a 
big  drink  of  whiskey,  just  about  now,  but  that's 
one  thing  I  won't  buy  for  you.  How  would  a  pot 
of  hot  coffee  from  the  cafe  strike  you  ?" 

"You  could  make  it  Mellin's  Food  and  I'd 
drink  it  if  you  said  so,"  chattered  the  drowned 
one  from  the  inside  of  the  wet  undershirt  he  was 
trying  to  pull  off  over  his  head. 

Smith  did  his  various  errands  quickly.  When 
he  reached  the  fourth-floor   suite    again,  Jibbey 

336 


A  Little  Leaven 

was  out  of  the  bath;  was  sitting  on  the  edge  of 
the  bed  wrapped  in  blankets,  with  the  steaming 
pot  of  coffee  sent  up  on  Smith's  hurry  order  be- 
side him  on  a  tray. 

"It's  your  turn  at  the  tub,"  he  bubbled  cheer- 
fully. "I  didn't  have  any  glad  rags  to  put  on, 
so  I  swiped  some  of  your  bedclothes.  Go  to  it, 
old  man,  before  you  catch  cold." 

Smith  was  already  pointing  for  the  bath.  "  Your 
trunk  will  be  up  in  a  few  minutes,  and  I've  told 
them  to  send  it  here,"  he  said.  "When  you  want 
to  quit  me,  you'll  find  your  rooms  five  doors  to 
the  right  in  this  same  corridor:  suite  number 
four-sixteen." 

It  was  a  long  half-hour  before  Smith  emerged 
from  his  bath-room  once  more  clothed  and  in  his 
right  mind.  In  the  interval  the  reclaimed  trunk 
had  been  sent  up,  and  Jibbey  was  also  clothed. 
He  had  found  one  of  Smith's  pipes  and  some 
tobacco  and  was  smoking  with  the  luxurious 
enjoyment  of  one  who  had  suffered  the  pangs 
imposed  by  two  days  of  total  abstinence. 

"Just  hangin'  around  to  say  good  night,"  he 
began,  when  Smith  showed  himself  in  the  sitting- 
room.  Then  he  returned  the  borrowed  pipe  to 
its  place  on  the  mantel  and  said  his  small  say  to 
the  definite  end.    "After  all  that's  happened  to  us 

337 


The  Real  Man 

two  to-night,  Monty,  I  hope  you're  going  to  for- 
get my  crazy  yappings  and  not  lose  any  sleep 
about  that  Lawrenceville  business.  I'm  seven- 
teen different  kinds  of  a  rotten  failure;  there's 
no  manner  of  doubt  about  that;  and  once  in  a 
while — just  once  in  a  while — I've  got  sense  enough 
to  know  it.  You  saved  my  life  when  it  would 
have  been  all  to  the  good  for  you  to  let  me  go. 
I  guess  the  world  wouldn't  have  been  much  of 
a  loser  if  I  had  gone,  and  you  knew  that,  too. 
Will  you — er — would  you  shake  hands  with  me, 
Monty?" 

Smith  did  it,  and  lo  !  a  miracle  was  wrought: 
in  the  nervous  grasp  of  the  joined  hands  a  quick- 
ening thrill  passed  from  man  to  man;  a  thrill 
humanizing,  redemptory,  heart-mellowing.  And, 
oddly  enough,  one  would  say,  it  was  the  weaker 
man  who  gave  and  the  stronger  who  received. 


338 


XXV 
The  Pace-Setter 

SMITH  made  an  early  breakfast  on  the  morn- 
ing following  the  auto  drive  to  the  abandoned 
mine,  hoping  thereby  to  avoid  meeting  both  Miss 
Richlander  and  Jibbey.  The  Hophra  cafe  was 
practically  empty  when  he  went  in  and  took  his 
accustomed  place  at  one  of  the  alcove  tables, 
but  he  had  barely  given  his  order  when  Starbuck 
appeared  and  came  to  join  him. 

"You're  looking  a  whole  heap  better  this  morn- 
ing, John,"  said  the  mine  owner  quizzically,  as 
he  held  up  a  finger  for  the  waiter.  "How's  the 
grouch  ?" 

Smith's  answering  grin  had  something  of  its 
former  good  nature  in  it.  "To-day's  the  day, 
Billy,"  he  said.  "To-morrow  at  midnight  we 
must  have  the  water  running  in  the  ditches  or 
lose  our  franchise.  It's  chasing  around  in  the 
back  part  of  my  mind  that  Stanton  will  make 
his  grand-stand  play  to-day.  I'm  not  harboring 
any  grouches  on  the  edge  of  the  battle.  They  are 
a  handicap,  anyway,  and  always." 

339 


The  Real  Man 

"That's  good  medicine  talk,"  said  the  older 
man,  eying  him  keenly.  And  then:  "You  had 
us  all  guessing,  yesterday  and  the  day  before, 
John.  You  sure  was  acting  as  if  you'd  gone 
plumb  locoed." 

"I  was  locoed,"  was  the  quiet  admission. 

"What  cured  you  ?" 

"It's  too  long  a  story  to  tell  over  the  break- 
fast-table.    What  do  you  hear  from  Williams?" 

"All  quiet  during  the  night;  but  the  weather 
reports  are  scaring  him  up  a  good  bit  this  morn- 
ing. 

"Storms  on  the  range  ?" 

"Yes.  The  river  gained  four  feet  last  night, 
and  there  is  flood  water  and  drift  coming  down 
to  beat  the  band.  Just  the  same,  Bartley  says 
he  is  going  to  make  good." 

Smith  nodded.  "Bartley  is  all  right;  the  right 
man  in  the  right  place.  Have  you  seen  the  colo- 
nel since  he  left  the  offices  last  evening?" 

"Yes.  I  drove  him  and  Corona  out  to  the 
ranch  in  my  new  car.  He  said  he'd  lost  his  road- 
ster;  somebody  had  sneaked  in  and  borrowed  it." 

"I  suppose  he  told  you  about  the  latest  move — 
our  move — in  the  stock-selling  game?" 

"No,  he  didn't;  but  Stillings  did.  You  played 
it  pretty  fine,  John;    only  I  hope  to  gracious  we 

340 


The  Pace-Setter 

won't  have  to  redeem  those  options.  It  would 
bu'st  our  little  inside  crowd  wide  open  to  have  to 
buy  in  all  that  stock  at  par." 

Smith  laughed.  "  '  Sufficient  unto  the  day/ 
Billy.  It  was  the  only  way  to  block  Stanton. 
It's  neck  or  nothing  with  him  now,  and  he  has 
only  one  more  string  that  he  can  pull." 

"The  railroad  right-of-way  deal?" 

"Yes;  he  has  been  holding  that  in  reserve — 
that,  and  one  other  thing." 

"What  was  the  other  thing?" 

"Me,"  said  Smith,  cheerfully  disregardful  of 
his  English.  "You  haven't  forgotten  his  in- 
structions to  the  man  Lanterby,  that  night  out 
at  the  road-house  on  the  Topaz  pike  ? — the  talk 
that  you  overheard  ?" 

"No;   I  haven't  forgotten." 

"His  idea,  then,  was  to  have  me  killed  off  in  a 
scrap  of  some  sort — as  a  last  resort,  of  course; 
but  later  on  he  found  a  safer  expedient,  and  he  has 
been  trying  his  level  best  to  work  it  ever  since." 

Starbuck  was  absently  fishing  for  a  second 
cube  of  sugar  in  the  sugar-bowl.  "Has  it  got 
anything  to  do  with  the  bunch  of  news  that  you 
won't  tell  us — about  yourself,  John?" 

"It  has.  Two  days  ago,  Stanton  had  his 
finger  fairly  on  the  trigger,  but  a  friend  of  mine 

341 


The  Real  Man 

stepped  in  and  snapped  the  safety-catch.  Last 
night,  again,  he  stood  to  win  out;  to  have  the 
pry-hold  he  has  been  searching  for  handed  to 
him  on  a  silver  platter,  so  to  speak.  But  a  man 
fell  into  the  river,  and  Stanton  lost  out  once 
more." 

Starbuck  glanced  up  soberly.  "You're  talking 
in  riddles  now,  John.     I  don't  sabe." 

"It  isn't  necessary  for  you  to  sabe.  Results 
are  what  count.  Barring  accidents,  you  Timan- 
yoni  High  Line  people  can  reasonably  count  on 
having  me  with  you  for  the  next  few  critical  days; 
and,  I  may  add,  you  never  needed  me  more 
pointedly." 

Starbuck's  smile  was  face-wide. 

"I  hope  I  don't  feel  sorry,"  he  remarked. 
"Some  day,  when  you  can  take  an  hour  or  so  off, 
I'm  going  to  get  you  to  show  me  around  in  your 
little  mu-zeeum  of  self-conceit,  John.  Maybe  I 
can  learn  how  to  gather  me  up  one." 

Smith  matched  the  mine  owner's  good-natured 
smile.  For  some  unexplainable  reason  the  world, 
his  particular  world,  seemed  to  have  lost  its 
malignance.  He  could  even  think  of  Stanton 
without  bitterness;  and  the  weapon  which  had 
been  weighting  his  hip  pocket  for  the  past  few 
days  had  been  carefully  buried  in  the  bottom  of 

342 


The  Pace-Setter 

the  lower  dressing-case  drawer  before  he  came 
down  to  breakfast. 

"You  may  laugh,  Billy,  but  you'll  have  to 
admit  that  I've  been  outfiguring  the  whole  bunch 
of  you,  right  from  the  start,"  he  retorted  brazenly. 
"It's  my  scheme,  and  I'm  going  to  put  it  through 
with  a  whoop.  You'll  see — before  to-morrow 
night." 

"I  reckon,  when  you  do  put  it  through,  you 
can  ask  your  own  fee,"  said  Starbuck  quietly. 

"I'm  going  to;  and  the  size  of  it  will  astonish 
you,  Billy.  I  shall  turn  over  the  little  block  of 
stock  you  folks  have  been  good  enough  to  let  me 
carry,  give  you  and  the  colonel  and  the  board  of 
directors  a  small  dinner  in  the  club-room  up-stairs 
and — vanish.  But  let's  get  down  to  business.  This 
is  practically  Stanton's  last  day  of  grace.  If  he 
can't  get  some  legal  hold  upon  us  before  mid- 
night to-morrow  night,  or  work  some  scheme  to 
make  us  lose  our  franchise,  his  job  is  gone." 

"Show  me,"  said  the  mine  owner  succinctly. 

"It's  easy.  With  the  dam  completed  and  the 
water  running  in  the  ditches,  we  become  at  once 
a  going  concern,  with  assets  a  long  way  in  advance 
of  our  liabilities.  The  day  after  to-morrow — if 
we  pull  through — you  won't  be  able  to  buy  a 
single    share    of  Timanyoni    High    Line    at    any 

343 


The  Real  Man 

figure.  As  a  natural  consequence,  public  senti- 
ment, which,  we  may  say,  is  at  present  a  little 
doubtful,  will  come  over  to  our  side  in  a  land- 
slide, and  Stanton's  outfit,  if  it  wants  to  continue 
the  fight,  will  have  to  fight  the  entire  Timanyoni, 
with  the  city  of  Brewster  thrown  in  for  good 
measure.    Am  I  making  it  plain?" 

"Right  you  are,  so  far.     Go  on." 

"On  the  other  hand,  if  Stanton  can  block  us 
before  to-morrow  night;  hang  us  up  in  some  way 
and  make  us  lose  our  rights  under  the  charter; 
we're  gone — snuffed  out  like  a  candle.  Listen, 
Billy,  and  I'll  tell  you  something  that  I  haven't 
dared  to  tell  anybody,  not  even  Colonel  Baldwin. 
I've  been  spending  the  company's  money  like 
water  to  keep  in  touch.  The  minute  we  fail,  and 
long  before  we  could  hope  to  reorganize  a  second 
time  and  apply  for  a  new  charter,  Stanton's 
company  will  be  in  the  field,  with  its  charter  al- 
ready granted.  From  that  to  taking  possession 
of  our  dam,  either  by  means  of  an  enabling  act 
of  the  Legislature,  or  by  purchase  from  the  paper 
railroad,  will  be  only  a  step.  And  we  couldn't 
do  a  thing !  We'd  have  no  legal  rights,  and  no 
money  to  fight  with  !" 

Starbuck  pushed  his  chair  away  from  the  table 
and  drew  a  long  breath. 

344 


The  Pace-Setter 

"Good  Lord  !"  he  sighed;  "I  wish  to  goodness 
it  was  day  after  to-morrow !  Can  you  carry  it 
any  further,  John?" 

"Yes;  a  step  or  two.  For  a  week  Stanton  has 
been  busy  on  the  paper-railroad  claim,  and  that  is 
what  made  me  buy  a  few  cases  of  Winchesters  and 
send  them  out  to  Williams:  I  was  afraid  Stanton 
might  try  force.  He  won't  do  that  if  he  can  help 
it;  he'll  go  in  with  some  legal  show,  if  possible, 
because  our  force  at  the  dam  far  outnumbers 
any  gang  he  could  hire,  and  he  knows  we  are 
armed." 

"He  can't  work  the  legal  game,"  said  Starbuck 
definitively.  "I've  known  Judge  Warner  ever 
since  I  was  knee-high  to  a  hop-toad,  and  a  squarer 
man  doesn't  breathe." 

"That  is  all  right,  but  you're  forgetting  some- 
thing. The  paper  railroad  is — or  was  once — an 
interstate  corporation,  and  so  may  ask  for  relief 
from  the  federal  courts,  thus  going  over  Judge 
Warner's  head.  I'm  not  saying  anything  against 
Lorching,  the  federal  judge  at  Red  Butte.  I've 
met  him,  and  he  is  a  good  jurist  and  presumably 
an  honest  man.  But  he  is  well  along  in  years, 
and  has  an  exaggerated  notion  of  his  own  im- 
portance. Stanton,  or  rather  his  figurehead  rail- 
road people,  have  asked  him  to  intervene,  and  he 

345 


The  Real  Man 

has  taken  the  case  under  advisement.  That  is 
where  we  stand  this  morning." 

Starbuck  was  nodding  slowly.  "I  see  what 
you  mean,  now,"  he  said.  "If  Lorching  jumps 
the  wrong  way  for  us,  you're  looking  to  see  a 
United  States  marshal  walk  up  to  Bartley  Wil- 
liams some  time  to-day  and  tell  him  to  quit. 
That  would  put  the  final  kibosh  on  us,  wouldn't 
it?" 

Smith  was  rising  in  his  place. 

"/'ra  not  dead  yet,  Billy,"  he  rejoined  cheer- 
fully. "I  haven't  let  it  get  this  far  without  ham- 
mering out  a  few  expedients  for  our  side.  If  I 
can  manage  to  stay  in  the  fight  to-day  and  to- 
morrow  " 

A  little  new  underclerk  had  come  in  from  the 
hotel  office  and  was  trying  to  give  Starbuck  a 
note  in  a  square  envelope,  and  Starbuck  was 
saying:    "No;   that's  Mr.  Smith,  over  there." 

Smith  took  the  note  and  opened  it,  and  he 
scarcely  heard  the  clerk's  explanation  that  it  had 
been  put  in  his  box  the  evening  before,  and  that 
the  day  clerk  had  been  afraid  he  would  get  away 
without  finding  it.  It  was  from  Verda  Richlander, 
and  it  had  neither  superscription  nor  signature. 
This  is  what  Smith  read: 

"My  little  ruse  has  failed  miserably.     Mr.  K's. 

346 


The  Pace-Setter 

messenger  found  my  father  in  spite  of  it,  and  he — ■ 
the  messenger — returned  this  evening:  I  know, 
because  he  brought  a  note  from  father  to  me. 
Come  to  me  as  early  to-morrow  morning  as  you 
can,  and  we'll  plan  what  can  be  done." 

Smith  crushed  the  note  in  his  hand  and  thrust 
it  into  his  pocket.  Starbuck  was  making  a  cigar- 
ette, and  was  studiously  refraining  from  break- 
ing in.     But  Smith  did  not  keep  him  waiting. 

"That  was  my  knock-out,  Billy,"  he  said  with 
a  quietness  that  was  almost  overdone.  "My 
time  has  suddenly  been  shortened  to  hours — 
perhaps  to  minutes.  Get  a  car  as  quickly  as  you 
can  and  go  to  Judge  Warner's  house.  I  have  an 
appointment  with  him  at  nine  o'clock.  Tell  him 
I'll  keep  it,  if  I  can,  but  that  he  needn't  wait  for 
me  if  I  am  not  there  on  the  minute." 


347 


XXVI 

The  Colonel's  "Defi" 

THOUGH  it  was  only  eight   o'clock,   Smith 
sent  his  card  to  Miss  Richlander's  rooms 
at  once  and  then  had  himself  lifted  to  the  mez- 
zanine floor  to  wait  for  her.     She  came  in  a  few 
minutes,  a  strikingly  beautiful  figure  of  a  woman 
in  the  freshness  of  her  morning  gown,  red-lipped, 
bright-eyed,   and  serenely  conscious  of  her  own 
resplendent  gifts  of  face  and  figure.     Smith  went 
quickly  to  meet  her  and  drew  her  aside  into  the 
music  parlor.     Already  the  need  for  caution  was 
beginning  to  make  itself  felt. 
"I  have  come,"  he  said  briefly. 
"You  got  my  note  ?"  she  asked. 
"A  few  minutes  ago— just  as  I  was  leaving  the 
breakfast-table. " 

"You  will  leave  Brewster  at  once— while  the 
way  is  still  open  ? 

He  shook  his  head.  "I  can't  do  that;  in  com- 
mon justice  to  the  men  who  have  trusted  me,  and 
who  are  now  needing  me  more  than  ever,  I  must 
stay  through  this  one  day,  and  possibly  another.'' 

348 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi " 

"Mr.  Kinzie  will  not  be  likely  to  lose  any  time," 
she  prefigured  thoughtfully.  "He  has  probably 
telegraphed  to  Lawrenceville  before  this."  Then, 
with  a  glance  over  her  shoulder  to  make  sure 
that  there  were  no  eavesdroppers:  "Of  course, 
you  know  that  Mr.  Stanton  is  at  the  bottom  of 
all  this  prying  and  spying?" 

"It  is  Stanton's  business  to  put  me  out  of  the 
game,  if  he  can.  I've  told  you  enough  of  the 
situation  here  so  that  you  can  understand  why 
it  is  necessary  for  him  to  efface  me.  His  time  has 
grown  very  short  now." 

Again  the  statuesque  beauty  glanced  over  her 
shoulder. 

"Lawrenceville  is  a  long  way  off,  and  Sheriff 
Macauley  is  enough  of  a  politician — in  an  elec- 
tion year — to  want  to  be  reasonably  certain  be- 
fore he  incurs  the  expense  of  sending  a  deputy 
all  the  way  out  here,  don't  you  think?"  she 
inquired. 

"Certainty?  There  isn't  the  slightest  element 
of  uncertainty  in  it.  There  are  hundreds  of  people 
in  Brewster  who  can  identify  me." 

"But  not  one  of  these  Brewsterites  can  identify 
you  as  John  Montague  Smith,  of  Lawrenceville — 
the  man  who  is  wanted  by  Sheriff  Macauley," 
she    put    in    quickly.      Then    she    added:     "My 

349 


The  Real  Man 

father  foresaw  that  difficulty.  As  I  told  you  in 
my  note,  he  sent  me  a  letter  by  Mr.  Kinzie's 
messenger.  After  telling  me  that  he  will  be  de- 
tained in  the  mountains  several  days  longer,  he 
refers  to  Mr.  Kinzie's  request  and  suggests " 

The  fugitive  was  smiling  grimly.  "He  sug- 
gests that  you  might  help  Mr.  Kinzie  out  by  tell- 
ing him  whether  or  not  he  has  got  hold  of  the 
right  John  Smith  ?" 

"Not  quite  that,"  she  rejoined.  "He  merely 
suggests  that  I  may  be  asked  to  identify  you; 
in  which  case  I  am  to  be  prudent,  and — to  quote 
him  exactly — 'not  get  mixed  up  in  the  affair  in 
any  way  so  that  it  would  make  talk.'  " 

"I  see,"  said  Smith.  And  then:  "You  have  a 
disagreeable  duty  ahead  of  you,  and  I'd  relieve 
you  of  the  necessity  by  running  away,  if  I  could. 
But  that  is  impossible,  as  I  have  explained." 

She  was  silent  for  a  moment;  then  she  said: 
"When  I  told  you  a  few  days  ago  that  you  were 
going  to  need  my  help,  Montague,  I  didn't  fore- 
see anything  like  this.  Have  you  any  means  of 
finding  out  whether  or  not  Mr.  Kinzie  has  sent 
his  wire  to  Lawrenceville  ?" 

"Yes,  I  think  I  can  do  that  much." 

"Suppose  you  do  it  and  then  let  me  know.  I 
shall  breakfast  with  the  Stantons  in  a  few  minutes; 

350 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi " 

and  after  nine  o'clock  ...  if  you  could  contrive 
to  keep  out  of  the  way  until  I  can  get  word  to 
you;  just  so  they  won't  be  able  to  bring  us  face 
to  face  with  each  other " 

Smith  saw  what  she  meant;  saw,  also,  where- 
unto  his  wretched  fate  was  dragging  him.  It 
was  the  newest  of  all  the  reincarnations,  the  one 
which  had  begun  with  Jibbey's  silent  hand-clasp 
the  night  before,  which  prompted  him  to  say: 

"If  they  should  ask  you  about  me,  you  must 
tell  them  the  truth,  Verda." 

Her  smile  was  mildly  scornful. 

"Is  that  what  the  plain-faced  little  ranch  person 
would  do?"  she  asked. 

"I  don't  know;   yes,  I  guess  it  is." 

"Doesn't  she  care  any  more  for  you  than  that  ?" 

Smith  did  not  reply.  He  was  standing  where 
he  could  watch  the  comings  and  goings  of  the 
elevators.  Time  was  precious  and  he  was  chafing 
at  the  delay,  but  Miss  Richlander  was  not  yet 
ready  to  let  him  go. 

"Tell  me  honestly,  Montague,"  she  said;  "is 
it  anything  more  than  a  case  of  propinquity  with 
this  Baldwin  girl  ? — on  your  part,  I  mean." 

"It  isn't  anything,"  he  returned  soberly.  "Co- 
rona Baldwin  will  never  marry  any  man  who  has 
so  much  to  explain  as  I  have." 

351 


The  Real  Man 

"You  didn't  know  this  was  her  home,  when 
you  came  out  here?" 

"No." 

"But  you  had  met  her  somewhere,  before  you 
came  ?" 

"Once;  yes.  It  was  in  Guthrieville,  over  a 
year  ago.  I  had  driven  over  to  call  on  some 
people  that  I  knew,  and  I  met  her  there  at  a 
house  where  she  was  visiting." 

"Does  she  remember  that  she  had  met  you?" 

"No,  not  yet."  He  was  certain  enough  of  this 
to  answer  without  reservations. 

"But  you  remembered  her?" 

"Not  at  first." 

"I  see,"  she  nodded,  and  then,  without  warn- 
ing: "What  was  the  matter  with  you  last  night — 
about  dinner-time?" 

"Why  should  you  think  there  was  anything 
the  matter  with  me?" 

"I  was  out  driving  with  the  Stantons.  When 
I  came  back  to  the  hotel  I  found  Colonel  Baldwin 
and  another  man — a  lawyer,  I  think  he  was — 
waiting  for  me.  They  said  you  were  needing  a 
friend  who  could  go  and  talk  to  you  and — 'calm 
you  down/  was  the  phrase  the  lawyer  used.  I 
was  good-natured  enough  to  go  with  them,  but 
when  we  reached  your  offices  you  had  gone,  and 

352 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi  " 

the  ranch  girl  was  there  alone,  waiting  for  her 
father." 

"That  was  nonsense!"  he  commented;  "their 
going  after  you  as  if  I  were  a  maniac  or  a  drunken 
man,  I  mean." 

This  time  Miss  Richlander's  smile  was  dis- 
tinctly resentful.  "I  suppose  the  colonel's  daugh- 
ter answered  the  purpose  better,"  she  said. 
"There  was  an  awkward  little  contretemps,  and 
Miss  Baldwin  refused,  rather  rudely,  I  thought, 
to  tell  her  father  where  you  had  gone." 

Smith  broke  away  from  the  unwelcome  subject 
abruptly,  saying:  "There  is  something  else  you 
ought  to  know.     Jibbey  is  here,  at  last." 

"Herein  the  hotel?" 

"Yes." 

"Does  he  know  you  are  here?" 

"He  does." 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me  before  ?  That  will 
complicate  things  dreadfully.  Tucker  will  talk 
and  tell  all  he  knows;   he  can't  help  it." 

"This  is  one  time  when  he  will  not  talk.  Per- 
haps he  will  tell  you  why  when  you  see  him." 

Miss  Richlander  glanced  at  the  face  of  the 
small  watch  pinned  on  her  shoulder. 

"You  must  not  stay  here  any  longer,"  she 
protested.     "The  Stantons  may  come  down  any 

353 


The  Real  Man 

minute,  now,  and  they  mustn't  find  us  together. 
I  am  still  forgiving  enough  to  want  to  help  you, 
but  you  must  do  your  part  and  let  me  know  what 
is  going  on." 

Smith  promised  and  took  his  dismissal  with  a 
mingled  sense  of  relief  and  fresh  embarrassment. 
In  the  new  development  which  was  threatening 
to  drag  him  back  once  more  into  the  primitive 
savageries,  he  would  have  been  entirely  willing 
to  eliminate  Verda  Richlander  as  a  factor,  help- 
ful or  otherwise.  But  there  was  good  reason  to 
fear  that  she  might  refuse  to  be  eliminated. 

William  Starbuck's  new  car  was  standing  in 
front  of  Judge  Warner's  house  in  the  southern 
suburb  when  Smith  descended  from  the  closed 
cab  which  he  had  taken  at  the  Hophra  House 
side  entrance.  The  clock  in  the  court-house  tower 
was  striking  the  quarter  of  nine.  The  elevated 
mesa  upon  which  the  suburb  was  built  commanded 
a  broad  view  of  the  town  and  the  outlying  ranch 
lands,  and  in  the  distance  beyond  the  river  the 
Hillcrest  cottonwoods  outlined  themselves  against 
a  background  of  miniature  buttes. 

Smith's  gaze  took  in  the  wide,  sunlit  prospect. 
He  had  paid  and  dismissed  his  cabman,  and  the 
thought  came  to  him  that  in  a  few  hours  the 
wooded  buttes,  the  bare  plains,  the  mighty  moun- 

354 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi " 

tains,  and  the  pictured  city  spreading  map-like 
at  his  feet  would  probably  exist  for  him  only  as 
a  memory.  While  he  halted  on  the  terrace, 
Starbuck  came  out  of  the  house. 

"The  judge  is  at  breakfast,"  the  mine  owner 
announced.  "You're  to  go  in  and  wait.  What 
do  you  want  me  to  do  next  ? " 

Smith  glanced  down  regretfully  at  the  shin- 
ing varnish  and  resplendent  metal  of  the  new 
automobile.  "If  your  car  wasn't  so  new,"  he 
began;   but  Starbuck  cut  him  off. 

"Call  the  car  a  thousand  years  old  and  go  on." 

"All  right.  When  I  get  through  with  the  judge 
I  shall  want  to  go  out  to  the  dam.  Will  you  wait 
and  take  me  ?" 

"Surest  thing  on  earth,"— with  prompt  ac- 
quiescence. And  then:  "Is  it  as  bad  as  you 
thought  it  was  going  to  be,  John  ?" 

"It's  about  as  bad  as  it  can  be,"  was  the  sober 
reply,  and  with  that  Smith  went  in  to  wait  for 
his  interview  with  the  Timanyoni's  best-beloved 
jurist. 

As  we  have  seen,  this  was  at  nine  o'clock,  or 
a  few  minutes  before  the  hour,  and  as  Starbuck 
descended  the  stone  steps  to  take  his  seat  in  the 
car,  David  Kinzie,  at  his  desk  in  the  Brewster 
City  National,  was  asking  the  telephone  "cen- 

355 


The  Real  Man 

tral"  to  give  him  the  Timanyoni  High  Line  offices. 
Martin,  the  bookkeeper,  answered,  and  he  took  a 
message  from  the  bank  president  that  presently 
brought  Colonel  Dexter  Baldwin  to  the  private 
room  in  the  bank  known  to  nervous  debtors  as 
"the  sweat-box". 

"Sit  down,  Dexter,"  said  the  banker  shortly; 
"sit  down  a  minute  while  I  look  at  my  mail." 

It  was  one  of  David  Kinzie's  small  subtleties 
to  make  a  man  sit  idly  thus,  on  one  pretext  or 
another;  it  rarely  failed  to  put  the  incomer  at  a 
disadvantage,  and  on  the  present  occasion  it 
worked  like  a  charm.  Baldwin  had  let  his  cigar 
go  out  and  had  chewed  the  end  of  it  into  a  pulp 
before  Kinzie  swung  around  in  his  chair  and 
launched  out  abruptly. 

"You  and  I  have  always  been  pretty  good 
friends,  Dexter,"  he  began,  "and  I  have  called  you 
down  here  this  morning  to  prove  to  you  that  I 
am  still  your  friend.    Where  is  your  man  Smith  ?" 

Baldwin  shook  his  head.  "I  don't  know," 
he  answered.  "I  haven't  seen  him  since  last  eve- 
ning." 

"Are  you  sure  he  is  still  in  town  ?" 

"I  haven't  any  reason  to  think  that  he  isn't." 

"Hasn't  run  away,  then?" 

The  Missouri  colonel  squared  himself  doggedly 
356 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi " 

in  the  suppliant  debtor's  chair,  which  was  the 
one  Kinzie  had  placed  for  him.  "What  are  you 
driving  at,  Dave?"  he  demanded. 

"We'll  tackle  your  end  of  it,  first,"  said  the 
banker  curtly.  "Do  you  know  that  you  and 
your  crowd  have  come  to  the  bottom  of  the  bag 
on  that  dam  proposition?" 

"No,  I  don't." 

"Well,  you  have.  You've  got  just  this  one 
more  day  to  live." 

The  Missourian  fell  back  upon  his  native 
phrase. 

"I  reckon  you'll  have  to  show  me,  Dave." 

"I  will.  Have  you  seen  the  weather  report 
this  morning  ?" 

"No." 

"I  thought  not.  I've  had  a  trained  observer 
up  in  the  eastern  hills  for  the  past  week.  The 
river  rose  four  feet  last  night,  and  there  are  pre- 
dictions out  for  more  cloudbursts  and  thunder- 
storms in  the  headwater  region.  The  snow  is 
melting  fast  in  the  higher  gulches,  and  you  know 
as  well  as  I  do  that  there  is  at  least  a  strong  prob- 
ability that  your  dam  won't  hold  the  flood  rise." 

"I  don't  know  it,"  asserted  Baldwin  stoutly. 
"But  go  on.  You've  got  your  gun  loaded:  what 
are  you  aiming  it  at?" 

357 


The  Real  Man 

"Just  this:  there  is  a  chance  that  you'll  lose 
the  dam  by  natural  causes  before  the  concrete 
hardens;  but  if  you  don't,  you're  sure  to  lose  it 
the  other  way.  I  told  you  weeks  ago  that  the 
other  people  were  carrying  too  many  big  guns 
for  you.  I  don't  want  to  see  you  killed  off, 
Dexter." 

"I'm  no  quitter;  you  ought  to  know  that, 
Dave,"  was  the  blunt  rejoinder. 

"I  know;  but  there  are  times  when  it  is  simply 
foolhardy  to  hold  on.  The  compromise  proposi- 
tion that  I  put  up  to  you  people  a  while  back 
still  holds  good.  But  to-day  is  the  last  day, 
Dexter.  You  must  accept  it  now,  if  you  are  going 
to  accept  it  at  all." 

"And  if  we  still  refuse  ?" 

"You'll  go  smash,  the  whole  kit  of  you.  As 
I've  said,  this  is  the  last  call." 

By  this  time  Baldwin's  cigar  was  a  hopeless 
wreck. 

"You've  got  something  up  your  sleeve,  Dave: 
what  is  it  ?"  he  inquired. 

The  banker  pursed  his  lips  and  the  bristling 
mustache  assumed  its  most  aggressive  angle. 

"There  are  a  number  of  things,  but  the  one 
which  concerns  you  most,  just  now,  is  this:  we've 
got   Smith's   record,   at  last.     He  is   an  outlaw, 

358 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi " 

with  a  price  on  his  head.  We've  dug  out  the 
whole  story.  He  is  a  defaulting  bank  cashier, 
and  before  he  ran  away  he  tried  to  kill  his 
president." 

Baldwin  was  frowning  heavily.  "Who  told 
you  all  this  ?  Was  it  this  Miss  Richlander  over 
at  the  Hophra  House?" 

"No;  it  was  her  father.  I  sent  one  of  my 
young  men  out  to  the  Topaz  to  look  him  up." 

"And  you  have  telegraphed  to  the  chief  of 
police,  or  the  sheriff,  or  whoever  it  is  that  wants 
Smith?" 

"Not  yet.  I  wanted  to  give  you  one  more 
chance,  Dexter.  Business  comes  first.  The  Brew- 
ster City  National  is  a  bank,  not  a  detective 
agency.  You  go  and  find  Smith  and  fire  him; 
tell  him  he  is  down  and  out;  get  rid  of  him,  once 
for  all.  Then  come  back  here  and  we'll  fix  up 
that  compromise  with  Stanton." 

Baldwin  found  a  match  and  tried  to  relight 
the  dead  cigar.  But  it  was  chewed  past  redemp- 
tion. 

"Let's  get  it  plumb  straight,  Dave,"  he  pleaded, 
in  the  quiet  tone  of  one  who  will  leave  no  peace- 
keeping stone  unturned.  "You  say  you've  got 
John  dead  to  rights.  Smith  is  a  mighty  common 
name.     I  shouldn't  wonder  if  there  were  half  a 

359 


The  Real  Man 

million  9t  so  John  Smiths — taking  the  country 
over.  How  do  you  know  you've  got  the  right 
one?" 

"His  middle  name  is  ' Montague ',"  snapped 
the  banker,  "and  the  man  who  is  wanted  called 
himself  'J.  Montague  Smith'.  But  we  can  iden- 
tify him  positively.  There  is  one  person  in  Brew- 
ster who  knew  Smith  before  he  came  here; 
namely,  Mr.  Richlander's  daughter.  She  can  tell 
us  if  he  is  the  right  Smith,  and  she  probably  will 
if  the  police  ask  her  to." 

Baldwin  may  have  had  his  own  opinion  about 
that,  but  if  so,  he  kept  it  to  himself  and  spoke 
feelingly  of  other  things. 

"Dave,"  he  said,  rising  to  stand  over  the 
square-built  man  in  the  swing-chair,  "we've 
bumped  the  bumps  over  a  good  many  miles  of 
rough  road  together  since  we  first  hit  the  Timan- 
yoni  years  ago,  and  it's  like  pulling  a  sound  tooth 
to  have  to  tell  you  the  plain  truth.  You've  got  a 
mighty  bad  case  of  money-rot.  The  profit  ac- 
count has  grown  so  big  with  you  that  you  can't 
see  out  over  the  top  of  it.  You've  horsed  back 
and  forth  between  Stanton's  outfit  and  ours  until 
you  can't  tell  the  difference  between  your  old 
friends  and  a  bunch  of  low-down,  conscienceless 
land-pirates.    You  pull  your  gun  and  go  to  shoot- 

360 


The  Colonel's  "  Defi  " 

ing  whenever  you  get  ready.  We'll  stay  with  you 
and  try  to  hold  up  our  end — and  John's.  And 
you  mark  my  words,  Dave;  you're  the  man  that's 
going  to  get  left  in  this  deal;  the  straddler  always 
gets  left."  And  with  that  he  cut  the  interview 
short  and  went  back  to  the  High  Line  offices  on 
the  upper  floor. 


361 


XXVII 

Two  Witnesses 

DRIVEN  by  Starbuck  in  the  brand-new  car, 
Smith  reached  the  dam  at  half-past  ten 
and  was  in  time  to  see  the  swarming  carpenters 
begin  the  placing  of  the  forms  for  the  pouring  of 
the  final  section  of  the  great  wall.  Though  the 
high  water  was  lapping  at  the  foot  timbers  of 
the  forming,  and  the  weather  reports  were  still 
portentous,  Williams  was  in  fine  fettle.  There 
had  been  no  further  interferences  on  the  part  of 
the  railroad  people,  every  man  on  the  job  was 
spurting  for  the  finish,  and  the  successful  end 
was  now  fairly  in  sight. 

"We'll  be  pouring  this  afternoon,"  he  told 
Smith,  "and  with  a  twenty-four-hour  set  for  the 
concrete,  and  the  forms  left  in  place  for  additional 
security,  we  can  shut  the  spillway  gates  and  back 
the  water  into  the  main  ditch.  Instead  of  being 
a  hindrance  then,  the  flood-tide  will  help.  Under 
slack-water  conditions  it  would  take  a  day  or  two 
to  finish  filling  the  reservoir  lake,  but  now  we'll 

362 


Two  Witnesses 

get  the  few  feet  of  rise  needed  to  fill  the  sluices 
almost  while  you  wait." 

"You  have  your  guards  out,  as  we  planned?" 
Smith  inquired. 

"Twenty  of  the  best  men  I  could  find.  They 
are  patrolling  on  both  sides  of  the  river,  with 
instructions  to  report  if  they  see  so  much  as  a 
rabbit  jump  up." 

"Good.  I'm  going  to  let  Starbuck  drive  me 
around  the  lake  limits  to  see  to  it  personally  that 
your  pickets  are  on  the  job.  But  first,  I'd  like 
to  use  your  'phone  for  a  minute  or  two,"  and 
with  that  Smith  shut  himself  up  in  the  small 
field-office  and  called  Martin,  the  bookkeeper, 
at  the  town  headquarters. 

The  result  of  the  brief  talk  with  Martin  seemed 
satisfactory,  for  when  it  was  concluded,  Smith 
rang  off  and  asked  for  the  Hophra  House.  Being 
given  the  hotel  exchange,  he  called  the  number  of 
Miss  Richlander's  suite,  and  the  answer  came 
promptly  in  the  full,  throaty  voice  of  the  Olym- 
pian beauty. 

"Is  that  you,  Montague?" 

"Yes.  I'm  out  at  the  dam.  Nothing  has 
been  done  yet.  No  telegraphing,  I  mean.  You 
understand  ?" 

"Perfectly.      But    something    is    going    to    be 

3^3 


The  Real  Man 

done.  Mr.  K.  has  had  Colonel  B.  with  him  in 
the  bank.  I  saw  the  colonel  go  in  while  I  was  at 
breakfast.    When  are  you  coming  back  to  town  ?" 

"Not  for  some  time;  I  have  a  drive  to  make 
that  will  keep  me  out  until  afternoon. " 

"Very  well;  you'd  better  stay  away  as  long 
as  you  can,  and  then  you'd  better  communicate 
with  me  before  you  show  yourself  much  in  public. 
I'll  have  Jibbey  looking  out  for  you." 

Smith  said  "good-by"  and  hung  up  the  re- 
ceiver with  a  fresh  twinge  of  dissatisfaction. 
Every  step  made  his  dependence  upon  Verda 
Richlander  more  complete.  To  be  sure,  he  told 
himself,  they  had  both  forsworn  sentiment  in  the 
old  days,  but  was  that  any  guaranty  that  it  was 
not  now  awakening  in  Josiah  Richlander's  daugh- 
ter ?  And  Corona  Baldwin:  what  would  she  say 
to  this  newest  alliance  ?  Would  she  not  say  again, 
and  this  time  with  greater  truth,  that  he  was  a 
coward  of  the  basest  sort;  of  the  type  that  makes 
no  scruple  of  hiding  behind  a  woman's  skirts  ? 

Happily,  there  was  work  to  do,  and  he  went 
out  and  did  it.  With  the  new  car  to  cover  the 
longer  interspaces,  a  complete  round  of  Williams's 
sentries  was  made,  with  detours  up  and  down  the 
line  of  the  abandoned  Red  Butte  Southwestern, 
whose  right-of-way  claims  had  been  so  recently 

364 


Two  Witnesses 

revived.  Smith  tried  to  tell  himself  that  he  was 
only  making  a  necessary  reconnaissance  thor- 
oughly; that  he  was  not  delaying  his  return  to 
town  because  Verda  had  told  him  to.  But  when 
the  real  motive  could  no  longer  be  denied,  he 
brought  himself  up  with  a  jerk.  If  it  had  come 
to  this,  that  he  was  afraid  to  face  whatever  might 
be  awaiting  him  in  Brewster,  it  was  time  to  take 
counsel  once  more  of  the  elemental  things. 

"Back  to  Brewster,  Billy,  by  way  of  the  camp," 
he  directed,  and  the  overworked  car  was  turned 
and  headed  accordingly. 

It  was  some  little  time  before  this,  between  the 
noon-hour  and  the  one-o'clock  Hophra  House 
luncheon,  to  be  exact,  that  Mr.  David  Kinzie, 
still  halting  between  two  opinions,  left  his  desk 
and  the  bank  and  crossed  the  street  to  the  hotel. 
Inquiry  at  the  lobby  counter  revealing  the  fact 
that  Miss  Richlander  was  in  her  rooms,  Kinzie 
wrote  his  name  on  a  card  and  let  the  clerk  send 
it  up.  The  boy  came  back  almost  immediately 
with  word  that  Miss  Richlander  was  waiting  in 
the  mezzanine  parlors. 

The  banker  tipped  the  call-boy  and  went  up 
alone.  He  had  seen  Miss  Richlander,  once  when 
she  was  driving  with  Smith  and  again  at  the 
theatre  in  the  same  company.     So  he  knew  what 

365 


The  Real  Man 

to  expect  when  he  tramped  heavily  into  the 
parlor  overlooking  the  street.  None  the  less,  the 
dazzling  beauty  of  the  young  woman  who  rose 
to  shake  hands  with  him  and  call  him  by  name 
rather  took  him  off  his  feet.  David  Kinzie  was  a 
hopeless  bachelor,  from  choice,  but  there  are 
women,  and  women. 

"Do  you  know,  Mr.  Kinzie,  I  have  been  ex- 
pecting you  all  day,"  she  said  sweetly,  making 
him  sit  down  beside  her  on  one  of  the  flaming 
red  monstrosities  billed  in  the  hotel  inventories 
as  "Louis  Quinze  sofas".  "My  father  sent  me 
a  note  by  one  of  your  young  men,  and  he  said 
that  perhaps  you  would — that  perhaps  you  might 
want  to — "  Her  rich  voice  was  at  its  fruitiest, 
and  the  hesitation  was  of  exactly  the  proper  shade. 

Kinzie,  cold-blooded  as  a  fish  with  despondent 
debtors,  felt  himself  suddenly  warmed  and  moved 
to  be  gentle  with  this  gracious  young  woman. 

"Er — yes,  Miss  Richlander — er — a  disagree- 
able duty,  you  know.  I  wanted  to  ask  about  this 
young  man,  Smith.  We  don't  know  him  very 
well  here  in  Brewster,  and  as  he  has  considerable 
business  dealings  with  the  bank,  we — that  is,  I 
thought  your  father  might  be  able  to  tell  us  some- 
thing about  his  standing  in  his  home  town." 

"And  my  father  did  tell  you  ?" 

366 


Two  Witnesses 

"Well — yes;  he — er — he  says  Smith  is  a — a 
grand  rascal;  a  fugitive  from  justice;  and  we 
thought — "  David  Kinzie,  well  hardened  in  all 
the  processes  of  dealing  with  men,  was  making 
difficult  weather  of  it  with  this  all-too-beautiful 
young  woman. 

Miss  Richlander's  laugh  was  well  restrained. 
She  seemed  to  be  struggling  earnestly  to  make 
it  appear  so. 

"You  business  gentlemen  are  so  funny!"  she 
commented.  "You  know,  of  course,  Mr.  Kinzie, 
that  this  Mr.  Smith  and  I  are  old  friends;  you've 
probably  seen  us  together  enough  to  be  sure  of 
that.  Hasn't  it  occurred  to  you  that  however  well 
I  might  know  the  Mr.  Smith  my  father  has  written 
you  about,  I  should  hardly  care  to  be  seen  in 
public  with  him?" 

"Then  there  are  two  of  them?"  Kinzie  de- 
manded. 

The  young  woman  was  laughing  again.  "Would 
that  be  so  very  wonderful  ? — with  so  many  Smiths 
in  the  world  ?" 

"But — er — the  middle  name,  Miss  Richlander: 
that  isn't  so  infern — so  very  common,  I'm  sure." 

"It  is  rather  remarkable,  isn't  it?  But  there 
are  a  good  many  Montagues  in  our  part  of  the 
world,  too.    The  man  my  father  wrote  you  about 

367 


The  Real  Man 

always   signed   himself  'J.    Montague',    as   if  he 
were  a  little  ashamed  of  the  '  John'.'' 

"Then  this  Brewster  Smith  isn't  the  one  who 
is  wanted  in  Lawrenceville  for  embezzlement  and 
attempted  murder?" 

"Excuse  me,"  said  the  beauty,  with  another 
very  palpable  attempt  to  smother  her  amusement. 
"If  you  could  only  know  this  other  Smith;  the 
one  my  father  wrote  you  about,  and  the  one 
he  thinks  you  were  asking  about:  they  are  not 
the  least  bit  alike.  J.  Montague,  as  I  remember 
him,  was  a  typical  society  man;  a  dancing  man 
who  was  the  pet  of  the  younger  girls — and  of 
their  mothers,  for  that  matter;  you  know  what 
I  mean — the  kind  of  man  who  wears  dress  clothes 
even  when  he  dines  alone,  and  who  wouldn't  let 
his  beard  grow  overnight  for  a  king's  ransom. 
But  wait  a  moment.  There  is  a  young  gentle- 
man here  who  came  last  evening  direct  from 
Lawrenceville.     Let  me  send  for  him." 

She  rose  and  pressed  the  bell-push,  and  when 
the  floor  boy  came,  he  was  sent  to  the  lobby  to 
page  Jibbey.  During  the  little  wait,  David  Kin- 
zie  was  skilfully  made  to  talk  about  other  things. 
Jibbey  was  easily  found,  as  it  appeared,  and  he 
came  at  once.  Miss  Richlander  did  the  honors 
graciously. 

"Mr.  Kinzie,  this  is  Mr.  Tucker  Jibbey,  the  son 
368 


Two  Witnesses 

of  one  of  our  Lawrenceville  bankers.  Tucker — 
Mr.  Kinzie;  the  president  of  the  Brewster  City 
National."  Then,  before  Kinzie  could  begin: 
"Tucker,  I've  sent  for  you  in  self-defense.  You 
know  both  Mr.  John  Smith,  at  present  of  Brew- 
ster, and  also  J.  Montague  Smith,  sometime  of 
Lawrenceville  and  now  of  goodness  only  knows 
where.  Mr.  Kinzie  is  trying  to  make  out  that 
they  are  one  and  the  same." 

Jibbey  laughed  broadly.  He  stood  in  no  awe 
of  banks,  bankers,  or  stubbly  mustaches. 

"I'll  tell  John,  when  I  see  him  again — and  take 
a  chance  on  being  able  to  run  faster  than  he  can," 
he  chuckled.     "Ripping  good  joke!" 

"Then  you  know  both  men?"  said  Kinzie, 
glancing  at  his  watch  and  rising. 

"Like  a  book.  They're  no  more  alike  than 
black  and  white.  Our  man  here  is  from  Cincin- 
nati; isn't  that  where  you  met  him,  Verda  ? 
Yes,  I'm  sure  it  is — that  night  at  the  Carsons', 
if  you  remember.  I  believe  I  was  the  one  who 
introduced  him.  And  I  recollect  you  didn't  like 
him  at  first,  because  he  wore  a  beard.  They  told 
me,  the  last  time  I  was  over  in  Cinci,  that  he'd 
gone  West  somewhere,  but  they  didn't  say  where. 
He  was  the  first  man  I  met  when  I  lit  down  here. 
Damn'  little  world,  isn't  it,  Mr.  Kinzie?" 

David    Kinzie    was    backing    away,    watch    in 

369 


The  Real  Man 

hand.  Business  was  very  pressing,  he  said,  and 
he  must  get  back  to  his  desk.  He  was  very  much 
obliged  to  Miss  Richlander,  and  was  only  sorry 
that  he  had  troubled  her.  When  her  father 
should  return  to  Brewster  he  would  be  glad  to 
meet  him,  and  so  on  and  so  on,  to  and  beyond 
the  portieres  which  finally  blotted  him  out,  for 
the  two  who  were  left  in  the  Louis  Quinze  parlor. 
"Is  that  about  what  you  wanted  me  to  say  ?" 
queried  Jibbey,  when  the  click  of  the  elevator 
door-latch  told  them  that  Mr.  Kinzie  was  de- 
scending. 

"Tucker,  there  are  times  when  you  are  almost 
lovable,"  said  the  beauty  softly,  with  a  hand  on 
Jibbey's  shoulder. 

"I'm  glad  it's  what  you  wanted,  because  it's 
what  I  was  going  to  say,  anyway,"  returned  the 
ne'er-do-weel  soberly,  thus  showing  that  he,  too, 
had  not  yet  outlived  the  influence  of  the  over- 
night hand-grip. 

An  hour  further  along  in  the  afternoon,  Star- 
buck's  new  car,  pausing  momentarily  at  the  con- 
struction camp  to  give  its  occupants  a  chance  to 
witness  the  rapid  fulfilment  of  Williams's  pre- 
diction in  the  swiftly  pouring  streams  of  con- 
crete, advertised  its  shining  presence  to  the  en- 
gineer,  who   came  up    for    a    word    with    Smith 

370 


Two  Witnesses 

while  Starbuck  had  his  head  under  the  hood  of 
the  new-paint-burning  motor. 

"Somebody's  been  trying  to  get  you  over  the 
wire,  John;  some  woman,"  he  said,  in  tones  as 
low  as  the  thunderings  of  the  rock-crushers  would 
sanction.  "She  wouldn't  give  me  her  number, 
but  she  wanted  me  to  tell  you,  if  you  came  back 
here,  that  it  was  all  right;  that  you  had  nothing 
to  be  afraid  of.    She  said  you'd  understand." 


371 


XXVIII 

The  Straddler 

SINCE  Brewster  was  a  full-fledged  city,  its 
banks  closed  at  three  o'clock.  Ten  minutes 
after  the  hour,  which  happened  also  to  be  about 
the  same  length  of  time  after  Starbuck  and  Smith 
had  reached  town,  Mr.  Crawford  Stanton  got 
himself  admitted  by  the  janitor  at  the  side  door 
of  the  Brewster  City  National.  President  Kinzie 
was  still  at  his  desk  in  his  private  room,  and  the 
promoter  entered  unannounced. 

"I  thought  I'd  hang  off  and  give  you  the 
limit — all  the  time  there  was,"  he  said,  dropping 
into  the  debtor's  chair  at  the  desk-end.  And 
then,  with  a  quarrelsome  rasp  in  his  tone:  "Are 
you  getting  ready  to  switch  again  ?" 

Though  his  victims  often  cursed  the  banker 
for  his  shrewd  caution  and  his  ruthless  profit- 
takings,  no  one  had  ever  accused  him  of  timidity 
in  a  stand-up  encounter. 

"You've  taken  that  tone  with  me  before,  Stan- 
ton, and  I  don't  like  it,"  he  returned  brusquely. 

372 


The  Straddler 

"I've  been  willing  to  serve  you,  as  I  could, 
in  a  business  matter,  and  I  am  still  willing  to 
serve  you;  but  you  may  as  well  keep  it  in 
mind  that  neither  you,  nor  the  people  you  rep- 
resent, own  the  Brewster  City  National,  or  any 
part  of  it,  in  fee  simple." 

"We  can  buy  you  out  any  minute  we  think 
we  need  you,"  retorted  Stanton.  "But  never 
mind  about  that.  Your  man  came  back  from  the 
Topaz  last  night;  I  know,  because  I  make  it  my 
business  to  keep  cases  on  you  and  everybody  else. 
You've  let  the  better  part  of  the  day  go  by  with- 
out saying  a  word,  and  I've  drawn  the  only  con- 
clusion there  is  to  draw:  you're  getting  ready  to 
swap  sides  again." 

Kinzie  frowned  his  impatience.  "If  I  have  to 
do  business  with  your  people  much  longer,  Mr. 
Stanton,  I  shall  certainly  suggest  that  they  put 
a  man  in  charge  out  here  who  can  control  his 
temper.  I  have  acted  in  perfect  good  faith  with 
you  from  the  beginning.  What  you  say  is  true; 
our  man  did  return  from  the  Topaz  last  night. 
But  I  thought  it  wise  to  make  a  few  investiga- 
tions on  my  own  account  before  we  should  be 
committed  to  the  course  you  advocated,  and  it 
is  fortunate  for  us  that  I  did.  Here  is  Mr.  Rich- 
lander's  letter." 

373 


The  Real  Man 

Stanton  read  the  letter  through  nastily,  punc- 
tuating its  final  sentence  with  a  brittle  oath. 

"And  you've  muddled  over  this  all  day,  when 
every  hour  is  worth  more  to  us  than  your  one- 
horse  bank  could  earn  in  a  year?"  he  rapped  out. 
"What  have  you  done?  Have  you  telegraphed 
this  sheriff  ?" 

"No;  and  neither  will  you  when  I  tell  you  the 
facts.  I  was  afraid  you  might  go  off  at  half-cock, 
as  usual,  if  I  turned  the  matter  over  to  you.  You 
see  what  Mr.  Richlander  says,  and  you  will  note 
his  description  of  the  man  Smith  who  is  wanted 
in  Lawrenceville.  It  doesn't  tally  in  any  respect 
with  Baldwin's  treasurer,  and  the  common  name 
aroused  my  suspicions  at  once.  We  had  nothing 
to  go  on  unless  we  could  identify  our  man  defi- 
nitely, so  I  took  the  straightforward  course  and 
went  to  Miss  Richlander." 

Stanton's  laugh  was  a  derisive  shout. 
"You  need  a  guardian,  Kinzie;  you  do,  for  a 
fact!"  he  sneered.  "You  sit  here,  day  in  and 
day  out,  like  a  greedy  old  spider  in  the  middle 
of  a  web,  clawing  in  a  man-fly  every  time  the 
door  opens,  but  what  you  don't  know  about 
women —  Bah  !  you  make  my  back  ache !  Of 
course,  the  girl  pulled  the  wool  over  your  eyes; 
any  woman  could  do  that!" 

374 


The  Straddler 

"You  are  not  gaining  anything  by  being  abusive, 
Stanton.  As  I  have  said,  it  is  fortunate  for  all  of 
us  that  I  took  the  matter  into  my  own  hands  and 
used  a  little  ordinary  common  sense.  There  are 
two  Smiths,  just  as  I  suspected  when  I  read  Mr. 
Richlander's  letter.  Miss  Richlander  didn't  ask 
me  to  take  her  word  for  it.  She  called  in  a  young 
man  named  Jibbey,  who  arrived  here,  direct  from 
Lawrenceville,  as  I  understand,  last  evening.  He 
is  a  banker's  son,  and  he  knows  both  Smiths. 
This  man  of  Baldwin's  is  not  the  one  Mr.  Rich- 
lander  is  trying  to  describe  in  that  letter." 

Stanton  bit  the  tip  from  a  cigar  and  struck  a 
light. 

"Kinzie,"  he  said,  "you've  got  me  guessing. 
If  you  are  really  the  easy  mark  you  are  trying  to 
tell  me  you  are,  you  have  no  business  running  a 
bank.  I'm  going  to  be  charitable  and  put  it  the 
other  way  around.  You  think  we're  going  to 
lose  out,  and  you  are  trying  to  throw  me  off  the 
scent.  You  had  a  long  talk  with  Colonel  Baldwin 
this  morning — I  kept  cases  on  that,  too — and  you 
figured  that  you'd  make  money  by  seesawing 
again.  I'm  glad  to  be  able  to  tell  you  that  you 
are  just  about  twenty-four  hours  too  late." 

The  round-bodied  banker  righted  his  pivot-chair 
with  a  snap  and  his  lips  were  puffed  out  like  the 

375 


The  Real  Man 

lips  of  a  swimmer  who  sees  the  saving  plank 
drifting  out  of  reach. 

"You  are  wrong,  Stanton;  altogether  wrong !" 
he  protested.  "Baldwin  was  here  because  I  sent 
for  him  to  make  a  final  attempt  to  swing  him  over 
to  the  compromise.  You  are  doing  me  the  greatest 
possible  injustice !" 

Stanton  rose  and  made  ready  to  go. 

"I  think  that  would  be  rather  hard  to  do, 
Kinzie,"  he  flung  back.  "Nobody  loves  a  trim- 
mer. But  in  the  present  case  you  are  not  going 
to  lose  anything.  We'll  take  your  stock  at  par, 
as  I  promised  you  we  would." 

It  was  at  this  crisis  that  David  Kinzie  showed 
himself  as  the  exponent  of  the  saying  that  every 
man  has  his  modicum  of  saving  grace,  by  smiting 
upon  the  arm  of  his  chair  and  glaring  up  at  the 
promoter. 

"There's  another  promise  of  yours  that  you've 
got  to  remember,  too,  Stanton,"  he  argued 
hoarsely.  "You've  got  to  hold  Dexter  Baldwin 
harmless !" 

Stanton's  smile  was  a  mask  of  pure  malice. 
"I've  made  you  no  definite  promise  as  to  that; 
but  you  shall  have  one  now.  I'll  promise  to 
break  Baldwin  in  two  and  throw  him  and  his 
ranchmen  backers  out  of  the  Timanyoni.     That's 

376 


The  Straddler 

what  you  get  for  playing  fast  and  loose  with 
two  people  at  the  same  time.  When  you  look 
over  your  paying  teller's  statement  for  the  day, 
you'll  see  that  I  have  withdrawn  our  account 
from  your  tin-horn  money  shop.    Good-day.,, 

Five  minutes  later  the  promoter  was  squared 
before  his  own  desk  in  the  office  across  the 
street  and  was  hastily  scribbling  a  telegram 
while  a  messenger  boy  waited.  It  was  ad- 
dressed to  Sheriff  Macauley,  at  Lawrenceville, 
and  the  wording  of  it  showed  how  completely 
Stanton  was  ignoring  Banker  Kinzie's  investi- 
gations. 

Your  man  Montague  Smith  is  here,  known  as  John 
Smith,  secretary  and  treasurer  Timanyoni  High  Line 
Company.  Wire  authority  quick  to  chief  police 
Brewster  for  his  arrest  and  send  deputy  with  requisi- 
tion.     Rush  or  you  lose  him. 

Crawford  Stanton. 

He  let  the  boy  go  with  this,  but  immediately 
set  to  work  on  another  which  was  addressed  to 
the  great  man  whose  private  car,  returning  from 
the  Pacific  Coast,  was  due  to  reach  Denver  by 
the  evening  Union  Pacific  train.  This  second 
message  he  translated  laboriously  into  cipher, 
working  it  out  word  by  word  from  a  worn  code 
book  taken  from  the  safe.     But  the  copy  from 

377 


The  Real  Man 

which  he  translated,  and  which,  after  the  cipher 
was  made,  he  carefully  destroyed,  read  thus: 

The  obstacle  is  removed.  M'Graw  and  his  men 
will  take  possession  to-night  and  hold  until  we  can 
make  the  turn.  Stanton. 


378 


XXIX 

The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

CONVINCED  by  Verda  Richlander's  tele- 
phone message  to  the  construction  camp 
that  he  stood  in  no  immediate  danger,  Smith 
spent  the  heel  of  the  afternoon  in  the  High  Line 
offices,  keeping  in  wire  touch  with  Stillings,  whom 
he  had  sent  on  a  secret  mission  to  Red  Butte,  and 
with  Williams  at  the  dam. 

Colonel  Baldwin,  as  he  learned  from  Martin, 
had  gone  to  attend  the  funeral  of  one  of  his  neigh- 
bors, and  was  thus,  for  the  moment,  out  of  reach. 
Smith  told  himself  that  the  colonel's  presence  or 
absence  made  little  difference.  The  High  Line 
enterprise  was  on  the  knees  of  the  gods.  If  Wil- 
liams could  pull  through  in  time,  if  the  river- 
swelling  storms  should  hold  off,  if  Stanton  should 
delay  his  final  raid  past  the  critical  hour— and 
there  was  now  good  reason  to  hope  that  all  of 
these  contingencies  were  probable — the  victory 
was  practically  won. 

But  in  another  field  the  fighting  secretary, 
denying  himself  in  the  privacy  of  his  office  to 

379 


The  Real  Man 

everybody  but  Martin,  found  small  matter  for 
rejoicing.  It  was  one  of  life's  ironies  that  the 
metamorphosis  which  had  shown  him,  among 
other  things,  the  heights  and  depths  of  a  pure 
sentiment  had  apparently  deprived  him  of  the 
power  to  awaken  it  in  the  woman  he  loved. 

It  was  thus  that  he  was  interpreting  Corona 
Baldwin's  attitude.  She  had  recognized  the  trans- 
formation as  a  thing  in  process,  and  had  been 
interested  in  it  as  a  human  experiment.  Though 
it  was  chiefly  owing  to  her  beckoning  that  he  had 
stepped  out  of  the  working  ranks  at  the  construc- 
tion camp,  he  felt  that  he  had  never  measured  up 
to  her  ideals,  and  that  her  influence  over  him,  so 
far  as  it  was  exerted  consciously,  was  as  impersonal 
as  that  of  the  sun  on  a  growing  plant.  She 
had  wished  objectively  to  see  the  experiment  suc- 
ceed, and  had  been  willing  to  use  such  means 
as  had  come  to  hand  to  make  it  succeed.  For 
this  cause,  he  concluded,  with  a  curiously  bitter 
taste  in  his  mouth,  her  interest  in  the  human 
experiment  was  his  best  warrant  for  shutting 
the  door  upon  his  love  dream.  Sentiment,  the 
world  over,  has  little  sympathy  with  labora- 
tory processes,  and  the  woman  who  loves  does 
not  apply  acid  tests  and  call  the  object  of  her 
love  a  coward. 

380 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

Letting  the  sting  of  the  epithet  have  its  full 
effect,  he  admitted  that  he  was  a  coward.  He 
had  lacked  the  finer  quality  of  courage  when  he 
had  spirited  Jibbey  away,  and  he  was  lacking 
it  again,  now,  in  accepting  the  defensive  alliance 
with  Verda  Richlander.  He  had  not  shown  him- 
self at  the  hotel  since  his  return  from  the  long 
drive  with  Starbuck,  and  the  reason  for  it  was 
that  he  knew  his  relations  with  Verda  had  now 
become  an  entanglement  from  which  he  was  go- 
ing to  find  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  release  him- 
self. She  had  served  him,  had  most  probably  lied 
for  him;  and  he  assured  himself,  again  with  the 
bitter  taste  in  his  mouth,  that  there  would  be  a 
price  to  pay. 

It  is  through  such  doors  of  disheartenment 
that  temptation  finds  its  easiest  entrance.  For 
a  dismal  hour  the  old  life,  with  its  conventional 
enjoyments  and  limitations,  its  banalities,  its 
entire  freedom  from  the  prickings  of  the  larger 
ambitions  and  its  total  blindness  on  the  side 
of  broadening  horizons  and  higher  ideals,  be- 
came a  thing  most  ardently  to  be  desired,  a 
welcome  avenue  of  escape  from  the  toils  and 
turmoils  and  the  growing-pains  of  all  the  meta- 
morphoses. What  if  a  return  to  it  should  still  be 
possible  ?     What  if,  surrendering  himself  volun- 

381 


The  Real  Man 

tarily,  he  should  go  back  to  Lawrenceville  and 
fight  it  out  with  Watrous  Dunham  in  the  courts  ? 
Was  there  not  more  than  an  even  chance  that 
Dunham  had  offered  the  large  reward  for  his 
apprehension  merely  to  make  sure  that  he  would 
not  return  ?  Was  it  not  possible  that  the  thing 
the  crooked  president  least  desired  was  an  airing 
of  his  iniquitous  business  methods  in  the  courts  ? 

Smith  closed  his  desk  at  six  o'clock  and  went 
across  to  the  hotel  to  dress  for  dinner.  The  day 
of  suspense  was  practically  at  an  end  and  disaster 
still  held  aloof;  was  fairly  outdistanced  in  the 
race,  as  it  seemed.  Williams's  final  report  had 
been  to  the  effect  that  the  concrete-pouring  was 
completed,  and  the  long  strain  was  off.  Smith 
went  to  his  rooms,  and,  as  once  before  and  for  a 
similar  reason,  he  laid  his  dress  clothes  out  on 
the  bed.  He  made  sure  that  he  would  be  required 
to  dine  with  Verda  Richlander,  and  he  was  strip- 
ping his  coat  when  he  heard  a  tap  at  the  door  and 
Jibbey  came  in. 

"Glad  rags,  eh?"  said  the  blase  one,  with  a 
glance  at  the  array  on  the  bed.  "I've  just  run 
up  to  tell  you  that  you  needn't.  Verda's  dining 
with  the  Stantons,  and  she  wants  me  to  keep  you 
out  of  sight  until  afterward.  By  and  by,  when 
she's  foot-loose,  she  wants  to  see  you  in  the  mez- 

382 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

zanine.  Isn't  there  some  quiet  little  joint  where 
we  two  can  go  for  a  bite  ?  You  know  the  town, 
and  I  don't/' 

Smith  put  his  coat  on  and  together  they  circled 
the  square  to  Frascati's,  taking  a  table  in  the 
main  cafe.  While  they  were  giving  their  dinner 
order,  Starbuck  came  in  and  joined  them,  and 
Smith  was  glad.  For  reasons  which  he  could 
scarcely  have  defined,  he  was  relieved  not  to 
have  to  talk  to  Jibbey  alone,  and  Starbuck  played 
third  hand  admirably,  taking  kindly  to  the  sham 
black  sheep,  and  filling  him  up,  in  quiet,  straight- 
faced  humor,  with  many  and  most  marvellous  tales 
of  the  earlier  frontier. 

At  the  end  of  the  meal,  while  Jibbey  was  still 
content  to  linger,  listening  open-mouthed  to  Star- 
buck's  romancings,  Smith  excused  himself  and 
returned  to  the  hotel.  He  had  scarcely  chosen 
his  lounging-chair  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the  mez- 
zanine before  Miss  Richlander  came  to  join 
him. 

"It  has  been  a  long  day,  hasn't  it  ?"  she  began 
evenly.  "You  have  been  busy  with  your  dam, 
I  suppose,  but  I — I  have  had  nothing  to  do  but 
to  think,  and  that  is  something  that  I  don't  often 
allow  myself  to  do.  You  have  gone  far  since  that 
night   last   May  when  you   telephoned   me   that 

383 


The  Real  Man 

you  would  come  up  to  the  house  later — and  then 
broke  your  promise,  Montague." 

"In  a  way,  I  suppose  I  have,"  he  admitted. 

"You  have,  indeed.  You  are  a  totally  different 
man." 

"In  what  way,  particularly?" 

"In  every  conceivable  way.  If  one  could  be- 
lieve in  transmigration,  one  would  say  that  you 
had  changed  souls  with  some  old,  hard-hitting, 
rough-riding  ancestor.  Mr.  Stanton  has  just 
been  telling  me  the  story  of  how,  when  you  first 
came  here,  you  fought  barehanded  with  three 
miners  somewhere  back  in  the  hills." 

A  bleak  little  smile  of  reminiscence  wrinkled 
at  the  corners  of  the  fighter's  eyes. 

"Did  he  tell  you  that  I  knocked  them  out — all 
three  of  them  ?"  he  asked. 

"He  said  you  beat  them  shamefully;  and  I 
tried  to  imagine  you  doing  such  a  thing,  and 
couldn't.     Have  your  ambitions  changed,  too?" 

"I  am  not  sure  now  that  I  had  any  ambitions 
in  that  other  life." 

"Oh,  yes,  you  had,"  she  went  on  smoothly. 
"In  the  'other  life',  as  you  call  it,  you  would 
have  been  quite  willing  to  marry  a  woman  who 
could  assure  you  a  firm  social  standing  and  money 
enough  to  put  you  on  a  footing  with  other  men 

384 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

of  your  capabilities.  You  wouldn't  be  willing  to 
do  that  now,  would  you  ? — leaving  the  sentiment 
out  as  you  used  to  leave  it  out  then  ?" 

"No,  I  hardly  think  I  should." 

Her  laugh  was  musically  low  and  sweet,  and 
only  mildly  derisive. 

"You  are  thinking  that  it  is  change  of  en- 
vironment, wider  horizons,  and  all  that,  which 
has  changed  you,  Montague;  but  I  know  better. 
It  is  a  woman,  and,  as  you  may  remember,  I 
have  met  her — twice."  Then,  with  a  faint  glow 
of  spiteful  fire  in  the  magnificent  eyes:  "How  can 
you  make  yourself  believe  that  she  is  pretty  ?" 

He  shrugged  one  shoulder  in  token  of  the  utter 
uselessness  of  discussion  in  that  direction. 

"Sentiment  ?"  he  queried.  "I  think  we  needn't 
go  into  that,  at  this  late  day,  Verda.  It  is  a  field 
that  neither  of  us  entered,  or  cared  to  enter,  in 
the  days  that  are  gone.  If  I  say  that  Corona 
Baldwin  has — quite  unconsciously  on  her  part, 
I  must  ask  you  to  believe — taught  me  what  love 
means,  that  ought  to  be  enough." 

Again  she  was  laughing  softly. 

"You  seem  to  have  broadly  forgotten  the  old 
proverb  about  a  woman  scorned.  What  have 
you  to  expect  from  me  after  making  such  an 
admission  as  that?" 

385 


The  Real  Man 

Smith  pulled  himself  together  and  stood  the 
argument  firmly  upon  its  unquestionable  foot- 
ing. 

"Let  us  put  all  these  indirections  aside  and  be 
for  the  moment  merely  a  man  and  a  woman,  as 
God  made  us,  Verda,"  he  said  soberly.  "You 
know,  and  I  know,  that  there  was  never  any 
question  of  love  involved  in  our  relations  past 
and  gone.  We  might  have  married,  but  in  that 
case  neither  of  us  would  have  gotten  or  exacted 
anything  more  than  the  conventional  decencies 
and  amenities.  We  mustn't  try  to  make  believe 
at  this  late  day.  You  had  no  illusions  about  me 
when  I  was  Watrous  Dunham's  hired  man;  you 
haven't  any  illusions  about  me  now." 

"Perhaps  not,"  was  the  calm  rejoinder.  "And 
yet  to-day  I  have  lied  to  save  you  from  those  who 
are  trying  to  crush  you." 

"I  told  you  not  to  do  that,"  he  rejoined  quickly. 

"I  know  you  did;  and  yet,  when  you  went 
away  this  morning  you  knew  perfectly  well  that 
I  was  going  to  do  it  if  I  should  get  the  opportunity. 
Didn't  you,  Montague?" 

He  nodded  slowly;  common  honesty  demanded 
that  much. 

"Very  well;  you  accepted  the  service,  and  I 
gave  it  freely.     Mr.  Kinzie  believes  now  that  you 

386 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

are  another  Smith — not  the  one  who  ran  away 
from  Lawrenceville  last  May.  Tell  me:  would  the 
other  woman  have  done  as  much  if  the  chance 
had  fallen  to  her?" 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue  to  say,  "I  hope 
not,"  but  he  did  not  say  it.  Instead,  he  said: 
"But  you  don't  really  care,  Verda;  in  the  way 
you  are  trying  to  make  me  believe  you  do." 

"Possibly  not;  possibly  I  am  wholly  selfish 
in  the  matter  and  am  only  looking  for  some 
loophole  of  escape." 

"Escape?     From  whom?" 

She  looked  away  and  shook  her  head.  "From 
Watrous  Dunham,  let  us  say.  You  didn't  sus- 
pect that,  did  you  ?  It  is  so,  nevertheless.  My 
father  desires  it;  and  I  suppose  Watrous  Dunham 
would  like  to  have  my  money — you  know  I  have 
something  in  my  own  right.  Perhaps  this  may 
help  to  account  for  some  other  things — for  your 
trouble,  for  one.  You  were  in  his  way,  you  see. 
But  never  mind  that:  there  are  other  matters 
to  be  considered  now.  Though  Mr.  Kinzie  has 
been  put  off  the  track,  Mr.  Stanton  hasn't.  I 
have  earned  Mr.  Stanton's  ill-will  because  I 
wouldn't  tell  him  about  you,  and  this  evening, 
at  table,  he  took  it  out  on  me." 

"In  what  way?" 

387 


The  Real  Man 

"He  gave  me  to  understand,  very  plainly,  that 
he  had  done  something;  that  there  was  a  sensa- 
tion in  prospect  for  all  Brewster.  He  was  so 
exultantly  triumphant  that  it  fairly  frightened 
me.  The  fact  that  he  wasn't  afraid  to  show  some 
part  of  his  hand  to  me — knowing  that  I  would 
be  sure  to  tell  you — makes  me  afraid  that  the  trap 
has  already  been  set  for  you." 

"In  other  words,  you  think  he  has  gone 
over  Kinzie's  head  and  has  telegraphed  to 
Lawrenceville  ?" 

"Montague,  I'm  almost  certain  of  it!" 

Smith  stood  up  and  put  his  hands  behind  him. 

"Which  means  that  I  have  only  a  few  hours, 
at  the  longest,"  he  said  quietly.  And  then: 
"There  is  a  good  bit  to  be  done,  turning  over 
the  business  of  the  office,  and  all  that:  I've  been 
putting  it  off  from  day  to  day,  saying  that  there 
would  be  time  enough  to  set  my  house  in  order 
after  the  trap  had  been  sprung.  Now  I  am  like 
the  man  who  has  put  off  the  making  of  his  will 
until  it  is  too  late.  Will  you  let  me  thank  you 
very  heartily  and  vanish?" 

"What  shall  you  do?"  she  asked. 

"Set  my  house  in  order,  as  I  say — as  well  as 
I  can  in  the  time  that  remains.  There  are  others 
to  be  considered,  you  know." 

388 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

"Oh;  the  plain-faced  little  ranch  girl  among 
them,  I  suppose  ?" 

"No;  thank  God,  she  is  out  of  it  entirely — in 
the  way  you  mean/'  he  broke  out  fervently. 

"You  mean  that  you  haven't  spoken  to  her — 
yet?" 

"Of  course  I  haven't.  Do  you  suppose  I  would 
ask  any  woman  to  marry  me  with  the  shadow  of 
the  penitentiary  hanging  over  me?" 

"But  you  are  not  really  guilty." 

"That  doesn't  make  any  difference:  Watrous 
Dunham  will  see  to  it  that  I  get  what  he  has 
planned  to  give  me." 

She  was  tapping  an  impatient  tattoo  on  the 
carpet  with  one  shapely  foot. 

"Why  don't  you  turn  this  new  leaf  of  yours 
back  and  go  home  and  fight  it  out  with  Watrous 
Dunham,  once  for  all?"  she  suggested. 

"I  shall  probably  go,  fast  enough,  when  Mac- 
auley  or  one  of  his  deputies  gets  here  with  the 
extradition  papers,"  he  returned.  "But  as  to 
fighting  Dunham,  without  money " 

She  looked  up  quickly,  and  this  time  there  was 
no  mistaking  the  meaning  of  the  glow  in  the 
magnificent  brown  eyes. 

"Your  friends  have  money,  Montague — plenty 
of  it.    All  you  have  to  do  is  to  say  that  you  will 

389 


The  Real  Man 

defend  yourself.  I  am  not  sure  that  Watrous 
Dunham  couldn't  be  made  to  take  your  place  in 
the  prisoner's  dock,  or  that  you  couldn't  be  put 
in  his  place  in  the  Lawrenceville  Bank  and  Trust. 
You  have  captured  Tucker  Jibbey,  and  that 
means  Tucker's  father;  and  my  father — well, 
when  it  comes  to  the  worst,  my  father  always 
does  what  I  want  him  to.  It's  his  one  weakness." 
For  one  little  instant  Smith  felt  the  solid  ground 
slipping  from  beneath  his  feet.  Here  was  a  way 
out,  and  his  quick  mentality  was  showing  him 
that  it  was  a  perfectly  feasible  way.  As  Verda 
Richlander's  husband  and  Josiah  Richlander's 
son-in-law,  he  could  fight  Dunham  and  win.  And 
the  reward:  once  more  he  could  take  his  place 
in  the  small  Lawrenceville  world,  and  settle  down 
to  the  life  of  conventional  good  report  and  ease 
which  he  had  once  thought  the  acme  of  any  reason- 
able man's  aspirations.  But  at  the  half-yielding 
moment  a  word  of  Corona  Baldwin's  flashed  into 
his  brain  and  turned  the  scale:  "It  did  happen 
in  your  case  .  .  .  giving  you  a  chance  to  grow 
and  expand,  and  to  break  with  all  the  old  tradi- 
tions .  .  .  and  the  break  left  you  free  to  make 
of  yourself  what  you  should  choose."  It  was  the 
reincarnated  Smith  who  met  the  look  in  the 
beautiful  eyes  and  made  answer. 

390 


Your  friends  have  money,  Montague — plenty  of  it." 


J  o  ■>•«    . 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

"No,"  was  the  sober  decision;  and  then  he 
gave  his  reasons.  "  If  I  could  do  what  you  propose, 
I  shouldn't  be  worth  the  powder  it  would  take  to 
drive  a  bullet  through  me,  Verda,  for  now,  you  see, 
I  know  what  love  means.  You  say  I  have  changed, 
and  I  have  changed:  I  can  imagine  the  past-and- 
gone  J.  Montague  jumping  at  the  chance  you  are 
offering.  But  the  mill  will  never  grind  with  the 
water  that  is  past:  I'll  take  what  is  coming  to 
me,  and  try  to  take  it  like  a  man.  Good-night — 
and  good-by."  And  he  turned  his  back  upon  the 
temptation  and  went  away. 

Fifteen  minutes  later  he  was  in  his  office  in  the 
Kinzie  Building,  trying  in  vain  to  get  Colonel 
Baldwin  on  the  distance  wire;  trying  also — and 
also  in  vain — to  forget  the  recent  clash  and  break 
with  Verda  Richlander.  He  had  called  it  a  temp- 
tation at  the  moment,  but  perhaps  it  was  scarcely 
that.  It  was  more  like  a  final  effort  of  the  man 
who  had  been  to  retransform  the  man  who  was. 
For  a  single  instant  the  doors  of  all  his  former 
ambitions  had  stood  open.  He  saw  how  Josiah 
Richlander's  money  and  influence,  directed  by 
Verda's  compelling  demands,  could  be  used  to 
break  Dunham;  and  that  done,  all  the  rest  would 
be  easy,  all  the  paths  to  the  success  he  had  once 
craved  would  be  made  smooth. 

391 


The  Real  Man 

On  the  other-  hand,  there  was  everything  to 
lose,  and  nothing,  as  the  world  measures  results, 
to  be  gained.  In  a  few  hours  at  the  furthest  the 
good  name  he  had  earned  in  Brewster  would  be 
hopelessly  lost,  and,  so  far  as  human  foresight 
could  prefigure,  there  was  nothing  ahead  but  loss 
and  bitter  disgrace.  In  spite  of  all  this,  while 
the  long-distance  "central"  was  still  assuring 
him  that  the  Hillcrest  wire  was  busy,  he  found 
time  to  be  fiercely  glad  that  the  choice  had  been 
only  a  choice  offered  and  not  a  choice  accepted. 
For  love's  sake,  if  for  no  higher  motive,  he  would 
go  down  like  a  man,  fighting  to  the  end  for  the 
right  to  live  and  think  and  love  as  a  man. 

He  was  jiggling  the  switch  of  the  desk  'phone 
for  the  twentieth  time  in  the  effort  to  secure  the 
desired  line  of  communication  with  Baldwin  when 
a  nervous  step  echoed  in  the  corridor  and  the 
door  opened  to  admit  William  Starbuck.  There 
was  red  wrath  in  the  mine  owner's  ordinarily  cold 
eyes  when  he  flung  himself  into  a  chair  and  eased 
the  nausea  of  his  soul  in  an  outburst  of  pic- 
turesque profanity. 

"The  jig's  up— definitely  up,  John,"  he  was 
saying,  when  his  speech  became  lucid  enough  to 
be  understood.  "We  know  now  what  Stanton's 
'other  string'  was.     A  half-hour  ago,   a   deputy 

392 


The  Flesh-Pots  of  Egypt 

United  States  marshal,  with  a  posse  big  enough 
to  capture  a  town,  took  possession  of  the  dam  and 
stopped  the  work.  He  says  it's  a  court  order 
from  Judge  Lorching  at  Red  Butte,  based  on  the 
claims  of  that  infernal  paper  railroad  !" 

Smith  pushed  the  telephone  aside. 

"But  it's  too  late!"  he  protested.  "The  dam 
is  completed;  Williams  'phoned  me  before  I  went 
to  dinner.  All  that  remains  to  be  done  to  save 
the  charter  is  to  shut  the  spillways  and  let  the 
water  back  up  so  that  it  will  flow  into  the  main 
ditch!" 

"Right  there's  where  they've  got  us!"  was  the 
rasping  reply.  "They  won't  let  Williams  touch 
the  spillway  gates,  and  they're  not  going  to  let 
him  touch  them  until  after  we  have  lost  out  on 
the  time  limit !  Williams's  man  says  they've  put 
the  seal  of  the  court  on  the  machinery  and 
have  posted  armed  guards  everywhere.  Wouldn't 
that  make  you  run  around  in  circles  and  yelp 
like  a  scalded  dog?" 


393 


XXX 

A  Strong  Man  Armed 

WHEN  the  full  meaning  of  Stanton's  coup 
had  thus  set  itself  forth  in  terms  unmis- 
takable, Smith  put  his  elbows  on  the  desk  and 
propped  his  head  in  his  hands.  It  was  not  the 
attitude  of  dejection;  it  was  rather  a  trance-like 
rigor  of  concentration,  with  each  and  all  of  the 
newly  emergent  powers  once  more  springing  alive 
to  answer  the  battle-call.  At  the  desk-end  Star- 
buck  sat  with  his  hands  locked  over  one  knee, 
too  disheartened  to  roll  a  cigarette,  normal  solace 
for  all  woundings  less  than  mortal.  After  a  minute 
or  two  Smith  jerked  himself  around  to  face  the 
news-bringer. 

"Does  Colonel  Baldwin  know?"  he  asked. 

"Sure!  That's  the  worst  of  it.  Didn't  I  tell 
you  ?  After  he  got  back  from  Stuart's  funeral 
he  drove  out  to  the  dam,  reaching  the  works  just 
ahead  of  the  trouble.  When  M'Graw  and  the 
posse  outfit  showed  up,  the  colonel  got  it  into 
his  head  that  the  whole  thing  was  merely  another 

394 


A  Strong  Man  Armed 

trick  of  Stanton's — a  fake.  Ginty,  the  quarry 
boss,  brought  the  news  to  town.  He  says  there 
was  a  bloody  mix-up,  and  at  the  end  of  it  the 
colonel  and  Williams  were  both  under  arrest  for 
resisting  the  officers. " 

Smith  nodded  thoughtfully.  "Of  course;  that 
was  just  what  was  needed.  With  the  president 
and  the  chief  of  construction  locked  up,  and  the 
wheels  blocked  for  the  next  twenty-four  hours, 
our  charter  will  be  gone." 

"This  world  and  another,  and  then  the  fire- 
works,' '  Starbuck  threw  in.  "With  the  property 
all  roped  up  in  a  law  tangle,  and  those  stock 
options  of  yours  due  to  fall  in,  it  looks  as  if  a  few 
prominent  citizens  of  the  Timanyoni  would  have 
to  take  to  the  high  grass  and  the  tall  timber.  It 
sure  does,  John." 

"The  colonel  was  not  entirely  without  his 
warrant  for  putting  up  a  fight,"  Smith  went  on, 
after  another  reflective  minute.  "Do  you  know, 
Billy,  I  have  been  expecting  something  of  this 
kind — and  expecting  it  to  be  a  fake.  That's  why 
I  sent  Stillings  to  Red  Butte;  to  keep  watch  of 
Judge  Lorching's  court.  Stillings  was  to  'phone 
me  if  Lorching  issued  an  order." 

"And  he  hasn't  'phoned  you  ?" 

"No;    but  that  doesn't  prove  anything.     The 

395 


The  Real  Man 

order  may  have  been  issued,  and  Sailings  may 
have  tried  to  let  us  know.  There  are  a  good  many 
ways  in  which  a  man's  mouth  may  be  stopped — 
when  there  are  no  scruples  on  the  other  side." 

"Then  you  think  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
court  order  is  straight,  and  that  this  man  M'Graw 
is  really  a  deputy  marshal  and  has  the  law  for 
what  he  is  doing  ?" 

"In  the  absence  of  any  proof  to  the  contrary, 
we  are  obliged  to  believe  it — or  at  least  to  accept 
it.  But  we're  not  dead  yet.  .  .  .  Billy,  it's  run- 
ning in  my  mind  that  we've  got  to  go  out  there 
and  clean  up  Mr.  M'Graw  and  his  crowd." 

Starbuck  threw  up  his  hands  and  made  a  noise 
like  a  dry  wagon-wheel. 

"Holy  smoke  ! — go  up  against  the  whole  United 
States?"  he  gasped. 

Smith's  grin  showed  his  strong,  even  teeth. 

"Starbuck,  you  remember  what  I  told  you  one 
night  ? — the  night  I  dragged  you  up  to  my  rooms 
in  the  hotel  and  gave  you  a  hint  of  the  reason 
why  I  had  no  business  to  make  love  to  Corona 
Baldwin?" 

"Yep." 

"Well,  the  time  has  come  when  I  may  as  well 
fill  out  the  blanks  in  the  story  for  you.  The 
night  I  left  my  home  city  in  the  Middle  West 

396 


A  Strong  Man  Armed 

I  was  called  down  to  the  bank  of  which  I  was 
the  cashier  and  was  shown  how  I  was  going  to 
be  dropped  into  a  hole  for  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  of  the  bank's  money;  a  loan  which  I  had 
made  as  cashier  in  the  absence  of  the  president, 
but  which  had  been  authorized,  verbally,  by  the 
president  before  he  went  away." 

"A  scapegoat,  eh  ?  There  have  been  others. 
Go  on." 

"It  was  a  frame-up,  all  around.  The  loan  had 
been  made  to  a  friend  of  mine  for  the  express 
purpose  of  smashing  him — that  was  the  presi- 
dent's object  in  letting  it  go  through.  Unluckily, 
I  held  a  few  shares  of  stock  in  my  friend's  com- 
pany: and  there  you  have  it.  Unless  the  presi- 
dent would  admit  that  he  had  authorized  the 
loan,  I  was  in  for  an  offense  that  could  be  easily 
twisted  into  embezzlement." 

"The  president  stacked  the  cards  on  you?" 

"He  did.  It  was  nine  o'clock  at  night  and  we 
were  alone  together  in  the  bank.  He  wanted  me 
to  shoulder  the  blame  and  run  away;  offered  me 
money  to  go  with.  One  word  brought  on  an- 
other; and  finally,  when  I  dared  him  to  press 
the  police-alarm  button,  he  pulled  a  gun  on  me. 
I  hit  him,  just  once,  Billy,  and  he  dropped  like 


a  stone." 


397 


The  Real  Man 

"Great  Moses  '.—dead  ?" 

"I  thought  he  was.  His  heart  had  stopped, 
and  I  couldn't  get  him  up.  Picture  it,  if  you 
can — but  you  can't.  I  had  never  struck  a  man 
in  anger  before  in  all  my  life.  My  first  thought 
was  to  go  straight  to  the  police  station  and  make 
a  clean  breast  of  it.  Then  I  saw  how  impossible 
it  was  going  to  be  to  dodge  the  penitentiary,  and 
I  bolted;  jumped  a  freight-train  and  hoboed  my 
way  out  of  town.  Two  days  later  I  got  hold  of  a 
newspaper  and  found  that  I  hadn't  killed  Dun- 
ham; but  I  was  outlawed,  just  the  same,  and 
there  was  a  reward  offered." 

Starbuck  was  nodding  soberly.  "You  sure 
have  been  carrying  a  back-load  all  these  weeks, 
John,  never  knowing  what  minute  was  going  to 
be  the  next.  Now  I  know  what  you  meant  when 
you  hinted  around  about  this  Miss  Rich-pastures. 
She  knows  you  and  she  could  give  you  away  if 
she  wanted  to.     Has  she  done  it,  John?" 

"No;  but  her  father  has.  Kinzie  sent  one  of 
his  clerks  out  to  the  Topaz  to  hunt  up  the  old 
man.  Kinzie  hasn't  done  anything,  himself,  I 
guess;  Miss  Richlander  told  me  that  much;  but 
Stanton  has  got  hold  of  the  end  of  the  thread,  and, 
while  I  don't  know  it  definitely,  it  is  practically 
certain  he  has  sent  a  wire.     If  the  Brewster  police 

398 


A  Strong  Man  Armed 

are  not  looking  for  me  at  this  moment,  they  will 
be  shortly.  That  brings  us  back  to  this  High 
Line  knock-out.  As  the  matter  stands,  I'm  the 
one  man  in  our  outfit  who  has  absolutely  nothing 
to  lose.  I  am  an  officer  of  the  company,  and  no 
legal  notice  has  been  served  upon  me.  Can  you 
fill  out  the  remainder  of  the  order  ?" 

"No,  I'll  be  switched  if  I  can!" 

"Then  I'll  fill  it  for  you.  So  far  as  I  know — 
legally,  you  understand — this  raid  has  never 
been  authorized  by  the  courts;  at  least,  that  is 
what  I'm  going  to  assume  until  the  proper  papers 
have  been  served  on  me.  Therefore  I  am  free 
to  strike  one  final  blow  for  the  colonel  and  his 
friends,  and  I'm  going  to  do  it,  if  I  can  dodge  the 
police  long  enough  to  get  action. " 

Starbuck's  tilting  chair  righted  itself  with  a 
crash. 

"You've  thought  it  all  out? — just  how  to  go 
at  it?" 

" Every  move;  and  every  one  of  them  a  straight 
bid  for  a  second  penitentiary  sentence." 

"All  right,"  said  the  mine  owner  briefly. 
"Count  me  in." 

"For  information  only,"  was  the  brusque  reply. 
"You  have  a  stake  in  the  country  and  a  good 
name  to   maintain.     I   have   nothing.     But   you 

399 


The  Real  Man 

can  tell  me  a  few  things.  Are  our  workmen  still 
on  the  ground  ?" 

"Yes.  Ginty  said  there  were  only  a  few  strag- 
glers who  came  to  town  with  him.  Most  of  the 
two  shifts  are  staying  on  to  get  their  pay — or 
until  they  find  out  that  they  aren't  going  to  get 
it." 

"And  the  colonel  and  Williams:  the  marshal 
is  holding  them  out  at  the  dam  ?" 

"Uh-huh;  locked  up  in  the  office  shack,  Ginty 
says." 

"Good.  I  shan't  need  the  colonel,  but  I  shall 
need  Williams.  Now  another  question:  you 
know  Sheriff  Harding  fairly  well,  don't  you  ? 
What  sort  of  a  man  is  he  ?" 

"Square  as  a  die,  and  as  nervy  as  they  make 
'em.  When  he  gets  a  warrant  to  serve,  he'll 
bring  in  his  man,  dead  or  alive." 

"That's  all  I'll  ask  of  him.  Now  go  and  find 
me  an  auto,  and  then  you  can  fade  away  and  get 
ready  to  prove  a  good,  stout  alibi." 

"Yes — like  fits  I  will !"  retorted  the  mine  owner. 
"I  told  you  once,  John,  that  I  was  in  this  thing 
to  a  finish,  and  I  meant  it.  Go  on  giving  your 
orders." 

"Very  well;  you've  had  your  warning.  The 
next  thing  is  the  auto.     I  want  to  catch  Judge 

400 


A  Strong  Man  Armed 

Warner  before  he  goes  to  bed.  I'll  telephone 
while  you're  getting  a  car." 

Starbuck  had  no  farther  to  go  than  to  the 
garage  where  he  had  put  up  his  new  car,  and  when 
he  got  it  and  drove  to  the  Kinzie  Building,  Smith 
came  out  of  the  shadow  of  the  entrance  to  mount 
beside  him. 

"Drive  around  to  the  garage  again  and  let  me 
try  another  'phone,"  was  the  low-spoken  request. 
"My  wire  isn't  working." 

The  short  run  was  quickly  made,  and  Smith 
went  to  the  garage  office.  A  moment  later  a 
two-hundred-pound  policeman  strolled  up  to  put 
a  huge  foot  on  the  running-board  of  the  waiting 
auto.     Starbuck  greeted  him  as  a  friend. 

"Hello,  Mac.  How's  tricks  with  you  to- 
night?" 

"Th'  tricks  are  even,  an'  I'm  tryin'  to  take 
th'  odd  wan,"  said  the  big  Irishman.  "'Tis  a 
man  named  Smith  I'm  lookin'  for,  Misther  Star- 
buck — J.  Mon-tay-gue  Smith;  th'  fi-nanshal  boss 
av  th'  big  ditch  comp'ny.     Have  ye  seen  'urn?" 

Starbuck,  looking  over  the  policeman's  shoulder, 
could  see  Smith  at  the  telephone  in  the  garage 
office.  Another  man  might  have  lost  his  head, 
but  the  ex-cow-puncher  was  of  the  chosen  few 
whose  wits  sharpen  handily  in  an  emergency. 

401 


The  Real  Man 

"He  hangs  out  at  the  Hophra  House  a  good 
part  of  the  time  in  the  evenings,"  he  replied  coolly. 
"Hop  in  and  I'll  drive  you  around." 

Three  minutes  later  the  threatening  danger  was 
a  danger  pushed  a  little  way  into  the  future,  and 
Starbuck  was  back  at  the  garage  curb  waiting  for 
Smith  to  come  out.  Through  the  window  he  saw 
Smith  replacing  the  receiver  on  its  hook,  and  a 
moment  afterward  he  was  opening  the  car  door  for 
his  passenger. 

"Did  you  make  out  to  raise  the  judge?"  he 
inquired,  as  Smith  climbed  in. 

"Yes.  He  will  meet  me  at  his  chambers  in  the 
court-house  as  soon  as  he  can  drive  down  from  his 
house." 

"What  are  you  hoping  to  do,  John?  Judge 
Warner  is  only  a  circuit  judge;  he  can't  set  an 
order  of  the  United  States  court  aside,  can  he?" 

"No;  but  there  is  one  thing  that  he  can  do. 
You  may  remember  that  I  had  a  talk  with  him 
this  morning  at  his  house.  I  was  trying  then  to 
cover  all  the  chances,  among  them  the  possibility 
that  Stanton  would  jump  in  with  a  gang  of  armed 
thugs  at  the  last  minute.  We  are  going  to  assume 
that  this  is  what  has  been  done." 

Starbuck  set  the  car  in  motion  and  sent  it 
spinning  out  of  the  side  street,  around  the  plaza, 

402 


A  Strong  Man  Armed 

and  beyond  to  the  less  brilliantly  illuminated 
residence  district — which  was  not  the  shortest 
way  to  the  court-house. 

"You  mustn't  pull  Judge  Warner's  leg,  John/1 
he  protested,  breaking  the  purring  silence  after 
the  business  quarter  had  been  left  behind;  "he's 
too  good  a  man  for  that." 

"I  shall  tell  him  the  exact  truth,  so  far  as  we 
know  it,"  was  the  quick  reply.  "There  is  one 
chance  in  a  thousand  that  we  shall  come  out  of 
this  with  the  law — as  well  as  the  equities — on 
our  side.  I  shall  tell  the  judge  that  no  papers 
have  been  served  on  us,  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
they  haven't.  What  are  you  driving  all  the  way 
around  here  for  ?" 

"This  is  one  of  the  times  when  the  longest 
way  round  is  the  shortest  way  home,"  Starbuck 
explained.  "The  bad  news  you  were  looking 
for  'has  came'.  While  you  were  'phoning  in  the 
garage  I   put  one  policeman  wise — to  nothing." 

"He  was  looking  for  me?" 

"Sure  thing — and  by  name.  We'll  fool  around 
here  in  the  back  streets  until  the  judge  has  had 
time  to  show  up.  Then  I'll  drop  you  at  the  court- 
house and  go  hustle  the  sheriff  for  you.  You'll 
want  Harding,  I  take  it?" 

"Yes.     I'm  taking  the  chance  that  only  the 

403 


The  Real  Man 

city  authorities  have  been  notified  in  my  personal 
affair — not  the  county  officers.  It's  a  long  chance, 
of  course;  I  may  be  running  my  neck  squarely 
into  the  noose.  But  it's  all  risk,  Billy;  every 
move  in  this  night's  game.  Head  up  for  the  court- 
house.   The  judge  will  be  there  by  this  time." 

Two  minutes  beyond  this  the  car  was  drawing 
up  to  the  curb  on  the  mesa-facing  side  of  the 
court-house  square.  There  were  two  lighted  win- 
dows in  the  second  story  of  the  otherwise  dark- 
ened building,  and  Smith  sprang  to  the  sidewalk. 

"Go  now  and  find  Harding,  and  have  him 
bring  one  trusty  deputy  with  him:  I'll  be  ready 
by  the  time  you  get  back,"  he  directed;  but 
Starbuck  waited  until  he  had  seen  Smith  safely 
lost  in  the  shadows  of  the  pillared  court-house 
entrance  before  he  drove  away. 


404 


XXXI 

A  Race  to  the  Swift 

SINCE  Sheriff  Harding  had  left  his  office  in 
the  county  jail  and  had  gone  home  to  his 
ranch  on  the  north  side  of  the  river  some  hours 
earlier,  not  a  little  precious  time  was  consumed 
in  hunting  him  up.  Beyond  this,  there  was  an- 
other delay  in  securing  the  deputy.  When  Star- 
buck's  car  came  to  a  stand  for  a  second  time  be- 
fore the  mesa-fronting  entrance  of  the  court- 
house, Smith  came  quickly  across  the  walk  from 
the  portal. 

"Mr.  Harding,"  he  began  abruptly,  "Judge 
Warner  has  gone  home  and  he  has  made  me  his 
messenger.  There  is  a  bit  of  sharp  work  to  be 
done,  and  you'll  need  a  strong  posse.  Can  you 
deputize  fifteen  or  twenty  good  men  who  can  be 
depended  upon  in  a  fight  and  rendezvous  them 
on  the  north-side  river  road  in  two  hours  from 
now  r 

The  sheriff,  a  big,  bearded  man  who  might 
have  sat  for  the  model  of  one  of  Frederic  Reming- 

405 


The  Real  Man 

ton's  frontiersmen,  took  time  to  consider.  '  Is 
it  a  scrap  ?"  he  asked. 

"It  is  likely  to  be.  There  are  warrants  to  be 
served,  and  there  will  most  probably  be  resist- 
ance.   Your  posse  should  be  well  armed." 

"We'll  try  for  it,"  was  the  decision.  "On  the 
north-side  river  road,  you  say  ?  You'll  want  us 
mounted  ?" 

"It  will  be  better  to  take  horses.  We  could 
get  autos,  but  Judge  Warner  agrees  with  me  that 
the  thing  had  better  be  done  quietly  and  with- 
out making  too  much  of  a  stir  in  town." 

"All  right,"  said  the  man  of  the  law.  "Is 
that  all?" 

"No,  not  quite  all.  The  first  of  the  warrants 
is  to  be  served  here  in  Brewster — upon  Mr.  Craw- 
ford Stanton.  Your  deputy  will  probably  find 
him  at  the  Hophra  House.  Here  is  the  paper: 
it  is  a  bench  warrant  of  commitment  on  a  charge 
of  conspiracy,  and  Stanton  is  to  be  locked  up. 
Also  you  are  to  see  to  it  that  your  jail  telephone 
is  out  of  order;  so  that  Stanton  won't  be  able  to 
make  any  attempt  to  get  a  hearing  and  bail 
before  to-morrow." 

"That  part  of  it  is  mighty  risky,"  said  Hard- 
ing.    "Does  the  judge  know  about  that,  too?" 

"He  does;  and  for  the  ends  of  pure  justice, 
406 


A  Race  to  the  Swift 

he  concurs  with  me — though,  of  course,  he  couldn't 
give  a  mandatory  order/' 

The  sheriff  turned  to  his  jail  deputy,  who  had 
descended  from  the  rumble  seat  in  the  rear. 

"You've  heard  the  dope,  Jimmie,"  he  said 
shortly.  "Go  and  get  His  Nobs  and  lock  him  up. 
And  if  he  wants  to  be  yelling  'Help  !'  and  sending 
for  his  lawyer  or  somebody,  why,  the  telephone's 
takin'  a  lay-off.     Savvy?" 

The  deputy  nodded  and  turned  upon  his  heel, 
stuffing  the  warrant  for  Stanton's  arrest  into  his 
pocket  as  he  went.  Smith  swung  up  beside  Star- 
buck,  saying:  "In  a  couple  of  hours,  then,  Mr. 
Harding;  somewhere  near  the  bridge  approach 
on  the  other  side  of  the  river." 

Starbuck  had  started  the  motor  and  was  bend- 
ing forward  to  adjust  the  oil  feed  when  the  sheriff 
left  them. 

"You  seem  to  have  made  a  ten-strike  with 
Judge  Warner,"  the  ex-cow-puncher  remarked, 
replacing  the  flash-lamp  in  its  seat  pocket. 

"Judge  Warner  is  a  man  in  every  inch  of  him; 
but  there  is  something  behind  this  night's  work 
that  I  don't  quite  understand,"  was  the  quick 
reply.  "I  had  hardly  begun  to  state  the  case 
when  the  judge  interrupted  me.  'I  know,'  he 
said.      'I   have   been  waiting  for  you   people  to 

407 


The  Real  Man 

come  and  ask  for  relief.'  What  do  you  make  of 
that,  Billy?" 

"I  don't  know;  unless  somebody  in  Stanton's 
outfit  has  welshed.  Shaw  might  have  done  it. 
He  has  been  to  Bob  Stillings,  and  Stillings  says 
he  is  sore  at  Stanton  for  some  reason.  Shaw  was 
trying  to  get  Stillings  to  agree  to  drop  the  rail- 
road case  against  him,  and  Bob  says  he  made 
some  vague  promise  of  help  in  the  High  Line 
business  if  the  railroad  people  would  agree  not 
to  prosecute." 

"There  is  a  screw  loose  somewhere;  I  know 
by  the  way  Judge  Warner  took  hold.  When  I 
proposed  to  swear  out  the  warrant  for  Stanton's 
arrest,  he  said,  'I  can't  understand,  Mr.  Smith, 
why  you  haven't  done  this  before,'  and  he  sat 
down  and  filled  out  the  blank.  But  we  can  let 
that  go  for  the  present.  How  are  you  going  to 
get  me  across  the  river  without  taking  me  through 
the  heart  of  the  town  and  giving  the  Brewster 
police  a  shy  at  me?" 

Starbuck's  answer  was  wordless.  With  a  quick 
twist  of  the  pilot  wheel  he  sent  the  car  skidding 
around  the  corner,  using  undue  haste,  as  it  seemed, 
since  they  had  two  hours  before  them.  A  few 
minutes  farther  along  the  lights  of  the  town  had 
been  left  behind  and  the  car  was  speeding  swiftly 

408 


A  Race  to  the  Swift 

westward  on  a  country  road  paralleling  the  rail- 
way track;  the  road  over  which  Smith  had  twice 
driven  with  the  kidnapped  Jibbey. 

"I'm  still  guessing,"  the  passenger  ventured, 
when  the  last  of  the  railroad  distance  signals  had 
flashed  to  the  rear.  And  then:  "What's  the 
frantic  hurry,  Billy  ?" 

Starbuck  was  running  with  the  muffler  cut  out, 
but  now  he  cut  it  in  and  the  roar  of  the  motor 
sank  to  a  humming  murmur. 

"I  thought  so,"  he  remarked,  turning  his  head 
to  listen.  "You  didn't  notice  that  police  whistle 
just  as  we  were  leaving  the  court-house,  did 
you  ? — nor  the  answers  to  it  while  we  were  dodging 
through  the  suburbs  ?  Somebody  has  marked  us 
down  and  passed  the  word,  and  now  they're 
chasing  us  with  a  buzz-wagon.  Don't  you  hear 
it?" 

By  this  time  Smith  could  hear  the  sputtering 
roar  of  the  following  car  only  too  plainly. 

"It's  a  big  one,"  he  commented.  "You  can't 
outrun  it,  Billy;  and,  besides,  there  is  nowhere 
to  run  to  in  this  direction." 

Again  Starbuck's  reply  translated  itself  into 
action.  With  a  skilful  touch  of  the  controls  he 
sent  the  car  ahead  at  top  speed,  and  for  a  matter 
of  ten  miles  or  more  held  a  diminishing  lead  in 

409 


The  Real  Man 

the  race  through  sheer  good  driving  and  an  ac- 
curate knowledge  of  the  road  and  its  twistings 
and  turnings.  Smith  knew  little  of  the  westward 
half  of  the  Park  which  they  were  approaching, 
and  the  little  was  not  encouraging.  Beyond 
Little  Butte  and  the  old  Wire  Silver  mine  the 
road  they  were  traversing  would  become  a  cart 
track  in  the  mountains;  and  there  was  no  outlet 
to  the  north  save  by  means  of  the  railroad  bridge 
at  Little  Butte  station. 

Throughout  the  race  the  pursuers  had  been 
gradually  gaining,  and  by  the  time  the  forested 
bulk  of  Little  Butte  was  outlining  itself  against 
the  clouded  sky  on  the  left,  the  headlights  of  the 
oncoming  police  car  were  in  plain  view  to  the  rear. 
Worse  still,  there  were  three  grade  crossings  of 
the  railroad  track  just  ahead  in  the  stretch  of 
road  which  rounded  the  toe  of  the  mountain; 
and  from  somewhere  up  the  valley  and  beyond 
the  railroad  bridge  came  the  distance-softened 
whistle  of  a  train. 

Starbuck  set  a  high  mark  for  himself  as  a 
courageous  driver  of  motor-cars  when  he  came  to 
the  last  of  the  three  road  crossings.  Jerking  the 
car  around  sharply  at  the  instant  of  track-crossing, 
he  headed  straight  out  over  the  ties  for  the  rail- 
road  bridge.     It  was   a  courting  of  death.     To 

410 


A  Race  to  the  Swift 

drive  the  bridge  at  racing  speed  was  hazardous 
enough,  but  to  drive  it  thus  in  the  face  of  a  down- 
coming  train  seemed  nothing  less  than  mad- 
ness. 

It  was  after  the  car  had  shot  into  the  first  of 
the  three  bridge  spans  that  the  pursuers  pulled 
up  and  opened  fire.  Starbuck  bent  lower  over 
his  wheel,  and  Smith  clutched  for  handholds. 
Far  up  the  track  on  the  north  side  of  the  river 
a  headlight  flashed  in  the  darkness,  and  the  hoarse 
blast  of  a  locomotive,  whistling  for  the  bridge, 
echoed  and  re-echoed  among  the  hills. 

Starbuck,  tortured  because  he  could  not  re- 
member what  sort  of  an  approach  the  railway 
track  made  to  the  bridge  on  the  farther  side, 
drove  for  his  life.  With  the  bridge  fairly  crossed 
he  found  himself  on  a  high  embankment;  and 
the  oncoming  train  was  now  less  than  half  a  mile 
away.  To  turn  out  on  the  embankment  was  to 
hurl  the  car  to  certain  destruction.  To  hold  on 
was  to  take  a  hazardous  chance  of  colliding  with 
the  train.  Somewhere  beyond  the  bridge  ap- 
proach there  was  a  road;  so  much  Starbuck  could 
recall.  If  they  could  reach  its  crossing  before  the 
collision  should  come 

They  did  reach  it,  by  what  seemed  to  Smith 
a  margin  of  no  more  than  the  length  of  the  heavy 

411 


The  Real  Man 

freight  train  which  went  jangling  past  them  a 
scant  second  or  so  after  the  car  had  been  wrenched 
aside  into  the  obscure  mesa  road.  They  had  gone 
a  mile  or  more  on  the  reverse  leg  of  the  long  down- 
river detour  before  Starbuck  cut  the  speed  and 
turned  the  wheel  over  to  his  seat-mate. 

"Take  her  a  minute  while  I  get  the  makings," 
he  said,  dry-lipped,  feeling  in  his  pockets  for 
tobacco  and  the  rice-paper.  Then  he  added: 
"Holy  Solomon!  I  never  wanted  a  smoke  so 
bad  in  all  my  life  !" 

Smith's  laugh  was  a  chuckle. 

"Gets  next  to  you — after  the  fact — doesn't  it? 
That's  where  we  split.  I  had  my  scare  before  we 
hit  the  bridge,  and  it  tasted  like  a  mouthful  of 
bitter  aloes.  Does  this  road  take  us  back  up  the 
river  r 

"It  takes  us  twenty  miles  around  through  the 
Park  and  comes  in  at  the  head  of  Little  Creek. 
But  we  have  plenty  of  time.  You  told  Harding 
two  hours,  didn't  you  ?" 

"Yes;  but  I  must  have  a  few  minutes  at  Hill- 
crest  before  we  get  action,  Billy." 

Starbuck  took  the  wheel  again  and  said  nothing 
until  the  roundabout  race  had  been  fully  run  and 
he  was  easing  the  car  down  the  last  of  the  hills 
into  the  Little  Creek  road.    There  had  been  three- 

412 


A  Race  to  the  Swift 

quarters  of  an  hour  of  skilful  driving  over  a  bad 
road  to  come  between  Smith's  remark  and  its 
reply,  but  Starbuck  apparently  made  no  account 
of  the  length  of  the  interval. 

"You're  aiming  to  go  and  see  Corry  ?"  he  asked, 
while  the  car  was  coasting  to  the  hill  bottom. 

"Yes." 

With  a  sudden  flick  of  the  controls  and  a  quick 
jamming  of  the  brakes,  Starbuck  brought  the  car 
to  a  stand  just  as  it  came  into  the  level  road. 

"We're  man  to  man  here  under  the  canopy, 
John;  and  Corry  Baldwin  hasn't  got  any  brother," 
he  offered  gravely.  "I'm  backing  you  in  this  busi- 
ness fight  for  all  I'm  worth — for  Dick  Maxwell's 
sake  and  the  colonel's,  and  maybe  a  little  bit  for 
the  sake  of  my  own  ante  of  twenty  thousand. 
And  I'm  ready  to  back  you  in  this  old-home  scrap 
with  all  the  money  you'll  need  to  make  your  fight. 
But  when  it  comes  to  the  little  girl  it's  different. 
Have  you  any  good  and  fair  right  to  hunt  up 
Corry  Baldwin  while  things  are  shaping  them- 
selves up  as  they  are  ?" 

Since  Smith  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
absolute  ego  he  had  acquired  many  things  new 
and  strange,  among  them  a  great  ruthlessness  in 
the  pursuit  of  the  desired  object,  and  an  equally 
large  carelessness  for  consequences  past  the  in- 

413 


The  Real  Man 

stant  of  attainment.     None  the  less,  he  met  the 
shrewd  inquisition  fairly. 

"Give  it  a  name,"  he  said  shortly. 

"I  will:  I'll  give  it  the  one  you  gave  it  a  while 
back.  You  said  you  were  an  outlaw,  on  two 
charges:  embezzlement  and  assault.  We'll  let 
the  assault  part  of  it  go.  Even  a  pretty  humane 
sort  of  fellow  may  have  to  kill  somebody  now  and 
then  and  call  it  all  in  the  day's  work.  But  the 
other  thing  doesn't  taste  good." 

"I  didn't  embezzle  anything,  Billy.  I  thought 
I  made  that  plain." 

"So  you  did.  But  you  also  made  it  plain  that 
the  home  court  would  be  likely  to  send  you  up 
for  it,  guilty  or  not  guilty.  And  with  a  thing  like 
that  hanging  over  you  .  .  .  you  see,  I  know  Corry 
Baldwin,  John.  If  you  put  it  up  to  her  to-night, 
and  she  happens  to  fall  in  with  your  side  of  it — 
which  is  what  you're  aiming  to  make  her  do — 
all  hell  won't  keep  her  from  going  back  home 
with  you  and  seeing  you  through  !" 

"Good  God,  Billy!  If  I  thought  she  loved  me 
well  enough  to  do  that !  But  think  a  minute. 
It  may  easily  happen  that  this  is  my  last  chance. 
I  may  never  see  her  again.  I  said  I  wouldn't  tell 
her — that  I  loved  her  too  well  to  tell  her  .  .  .  but 

now  the  final  pinch  has  come,  and  I " 

414 


A  Race  to  the  Swift 

"And  that  isn't  all,"  Starbuck  went  on  relent- 
lessly. "There's  this  Miss  Rich-acres.  You  say 
there's  nothing  to  it,  there,  but  you've  as  good 
as  admitted  that  she's  been  lying  to  Dave  Kinzie 
for  you.  Your  hands  ain't  clean,  John;  not  clean 
enough  to  let  you  go  to  Hillcrest  to-night." 

Smith  groped  in  his  pockets,  found  a  cigar  and 
lighted  it.  Perhaps  he  was  recalling  his  own  words 
spoken  to  Verda  Richlander  only  a  few  hours 
earlier:  "Do  you  suppose  I  would  ask  any  woman 
to  marry  me  with  the  shadow  of  the  penitentiary 
hanging  over  me?"  And  yet  that  was  just  what 
he  was  about  to  do — or  had  been  about  to  do. 

"Pull  out  to  the  side  of  the  road  and  we'll  kill 
what  time  there  is  to  kill  right  here,"  he  directed 
soberly.  And  then:  "What  you  say  is  right  as 
right,  Billy.  Once  more,  I  guess,  I  was  locoed 
for  the  minute.  Forget  it;  and  while  you're 
about  it,  forget  Miss  Richlander,  too.  Luckily 
for  her,  she  is  out  of  it — as  far  out  of  it  as  I  am." 


415 


XXXII 
Freedom 

THE  Timanyoni,  a  mountain  torrent  in  its 
upper  and  lower  reaches,  becomes  a  placid 
river  of  the  plain  at  Brewster,  dividing  its  flow 
among  sandy  islets,  and  broadening  in  its  bed  to 
make  the  long  bridge  connecting  the  city  with 
the  grass-land  mesas  a  low,  trestled  causeway. 
On  the  northern  bank  of  the  river  the  Brewster 
street,  of  which  the  bridge  is  a  prolongation, 
becomes  a  country  road,  forking  a  few  hundred 
yards  from  the  bridge  approach  to  send  one  of  its 
branchings  northward  among  the  Little  Creek 
ranches  and  another  westward  up  the  right  bank 
of  the  stream. 

At  this  fork  of  the  road,  between  eleven  and 
twelve  o'clock  of  the  night  of  alarms,  Sheriff 
Harding's  party  of  special  deputies  began  to 
assemble;  mounted  ranchmen  for  the  greater 
part,  summoned  by  the  rural  telephones  and 
drifting  in  by  twos  and  threes  from  the  outlying 
grass-lands.  Under  each  man's  saddle-flap  was 
slung    the    regulation    weapon    of    the    West — a 

416 


Freedom 

scabbarded  repeating  rifle;  and  the  small  troop 
bunching  itself  in  the  river  road  looked  serviceably 
militant  and  businesslike. 

While  Harding  was  counting  his  men  and  ap- 
pointing his  lieutenants  an  automobile  rolled 
silently  down  the  mesa  road  from  the  north  and 
came  to  a  stand  among  the  horses.  The  sheriff 
drew  rein  beside  the  car  and  spoke  to  one  of  the 
two  occupants  of  the  double  seat,  saying: 

"Well,  Mr.  Smith,  we're  all  here." 

"How  many?"  was  the  curt  question. 

"Twenty." 

"Good.  Here  is  your  authority" — handing 
the  legal  papers  to  the  officer.  "  Before  we  go  in 
you  ought  to  know  the  facts.  A  few  hours  ago 
a  man  named  M'Graw,  calling  himself  a  deputy 
United  States  marshal  and  claiming  to  be  acting 
under  instructions  from  Judge  Lorching's  court 
in  Red  Butte,  took  possession  of  our  dam  and 
camp.  On  the  even  chance  that  he  isn't  what  he 
claims  to  be,  we  are  going  to  arrest  him  and  every 
man  in  his  crowd.    Are  you  game  for  it  ?" 

"I'm  game  to  serve  any  papers  that  Judge 
Warner's  got  the  nerve  to  issue,"  was  the  big 
man's  reply. 

"That's  the  talk;  that's  what  I  hoped  to  hear 
you  say.    We  may  have  the  law  on  our  side,  and 

417 


The  Real  Man 

we  may  not;  but  we  certainly  have  the  equities. 
Was  Stanton  arrested  ?" 

"He  sure  was.  Strothers  found  him  in  the 
Hophra  House  bar,  and  the  line  of  talk  he  turned 
loose  would  have  set  a  wet  blanket  afire.  Just  the 
same,  he  had  to  go  along  with  Jimmie  and  get 
himself  locked  up." 

"That  is  the  first  step;  now  if  you're  ready, 
we'll  take  the  next." 

Harding  rode  forward  to  marshal  his  troop, 
and  when  the  advance  began  Starbuck  shut  off 
his  car  lamps  and  held  his  place  at  the  rear  of  the 
straggling  column,  juggling  throttle  and  spark 
until  the  car  kept  even  pace  with  the  horses  and 
the  low  humming  of  the  motor  was  indistinguish- 
able above  the  muffled  drumming  of  hoof-beats. 

For  the  first  mile  or  so  the  midnight  silence 
was  unbroken  save  by  the  subdued  progress 
noises  and  the  murmurings  of  the  near-by  river 
in  its  bed.  Once  Smith  took  the  wheel  while 
Starbuck  rolled  and  lighted  a  cigarette,  and  once 
again,  in  obedience  to  a  word  from  the  mine  owner, 
he  turned  the  flash-light  upon  the  gasolene  pres- 
sure-gauge. In  the  fulness  of  time  it  was  Star- 
buck  who  harked  back  to  the  talk  which  had  been 
so  abruptly  broken  off  at  the  waiting  halt  in  the 
Little  Creek  road. 

418 


Freedom 

"Let's  not  head  into  this  ruction  with  an  un- 
picked bone  betwixt  us,  John,"  he  began  gently. 
"Maybe  I  said  too  much,  back  yonder  at  the  foot 
of  the  hill." 

"No;  you  didn't  say  too  much,"  was  the  low- 
toned  reply.  And  then:  "Billy,  IVe  had  a 
strange  experience  this  summer;  the  strangest 
a  man  ever  lived  through,  I  believe.  A  few 
months  ago  I  was  jerked  out  of  my  place  in  life 
and  set  down  in  another  place  where  practically 
everything  I  had  learned  as  a  boy  and  man  had 
to  be  forgotten.  It  was  as  if  my  life  had  been 
swept  clean  of  everything  that  I  knew  how  to 
use — like  a  house  gutted  of  its  well-worn  and 
familiar  furniture,  and  handed  back  to  its  tenant 
to  be  refitted  with  whatever  could  be  found  and 
made  to  serve.  I  don't  know  that  I'm  making 
it  understandable  to  you,  but " 

"Yes,  you  are,"  broke  in  the  man  at  the  wheel. 
"I've  had  to  turn  two  or  three  little  double 
somersaults  myself  in  the  years  that  are  gone." 

"They  used  to  call  me  'Monty-Boy,.'  back 
there  in  Lawrenceville,  and  I  fitted  the  name," 
Smith  went  on.  "I  was  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  thousands  of  other  home-bred  young  fellows 
just  like  me,  nor  different  from  them  in  any 
essential  way.     I  had  my  little  tin-basin  round 

419 


The  Real  Man 

of  work  and  play,  and  I  lived  in  it.  I've  spent 
half  an  hour,  many  a  time,  in  a  shop  picking  out 
the  exactly  right  shade  in  a  tie  to  wear  with  the 
socks  that  I  had,  perhaps,  spent  another  half- 
hour  in  selecting." 

"I'm  getting  you,"  said  Starbuck,  not  without 
friendly  sympathy.     "Go  on." 

"Then,  suddenly,  as  I  have  said,  the  house  was 
looted.  And,  quite  as  suddenly,  it  grew  and  ex- 
panded and  took  on  added  rooms  and  spaces  that 
I'd  never  dreamed  of.  I've  had  to  fill  it  up  as 
best  I  could,  Billy:  I  couldn't  put  back  any  of 
the  old  things;  they  were  so  little  and  trivial  and 
childish.  And  some  of  the  things  I've  been  put- 
ting in  are  fearfully  raw  and  crude.  I've  just  had 
to  do  the  best  I  could — with  an  empty  house.  I 
found  that  I  had  a  body  that  could  stand  man- 
sized  hardship,  and  a  kind  of  savage  nerve  that 
could  give  and  take  punishment,  and  a  soul  that 
could  drive  both  body  and  nerve  to  the  limit. 
Also,  I've  found  out  what  it  means  to  love  a 
woman." 

Starbuck  checked  the  car's  speed  a  little  more 
to  keep  it  well  in  the  rear  of  the  ambling  cavalcade. 

"That's  your  one  best  bet,  John,"  he  said 
soberly. 

"It  is.  I've  cleaned  out  another  room  since 
420 


Freedom 

you  called  me  down  back  yonder  in  the  Little 
Creek  road,  Starbuck.  I  can't  trust  my  own 
leadings  any  more;  they  are  altogether  too  primi- 
tive and  brutal;  so  I'm  going  to  take  hers.  She'd 
send  me  into  this  fight  that  is  just  ahead  of  us, 
and  all  the  other  fights  that  are  coming,  with  a 
heart  big  enough  to  take  in  the  whole  world. 
She  said  I'd  understand,  some  day;  that  I'd 
know  that  the  only  great  man  is  one  who  is  too 
big  to  be  little;  who  can  fight  without  hating; 
who  can  die  to  make  good,  if  that  is  the  only 
way  that  offers." 

"That's  Corry  Baldwin,  every  day  in  the  week, 
John.  They  don't  make  'em  any  finer  than  she 
is,"  was  Starbuck's  comment.  And  then:  "I'm 
beginning  to  kick  myself  for  not  letting  you  go 
and  have  one  more  round-up  with  her.  She's 
doing  you  good,  right  along." 

"You  didn't  stop  me,"  Smith  affirmed;  "you 
merely  gave  me  a  chance  to  stop  myself.  It's 
all  over  now,  Billy,  and  my  little  race  is  about 
run.  But  whatever  happens  to  me,  either  this 
night,  or  beyond  it,  I  shall  be  a  free  man.  You 
can't  put  handcuffs  on  a  soul  and  send  it  to 
prison,  you  know.  That  is  what  Corona  was 
trying  to  make  me  understand;  and  I  couldn't — 
or  wouldn't." 

421 


The  Real  Man 

Harding  had  stopped  to  let  the  auto  come  up. 
Over  a  low  hill  just  ahead  the  pole-bracketed 
lights  at  the  dam  were  starring  themselves  against 
the  sky,  and  the  group  of  horsemen  was  halting 
at  the  head  of  the  railroad  trestle  which  marked 
the  location  of  the  north  side  unloading  station. 

From  the  halt  at  the  trestle  head,  Harding 
sent  two  of  his  men  forward  to  spy  out  the  ground. 
Returning  speedily,  these  two  men  reported  that 
there  were  no  guards  on  the  north  bank  of  the 
river,  and  that  the  stagings,  which  still  remained 
in  place  on  the  down-stream  face  of  the  dam, 
were  also  unguarded.  Thereupon  Harding  made 
his  dispositions.  Half  of  the  posse  was  to  go  up 
the  northern  bank,  dismounted,  and  rush  the 
camp  by  way  of  the  stagings.  The  remaining 
half,  also  on  foot,  was  to  cross  at  once  on  the  rail- 
road trestle,  and  to  make  its  approach  by  way  of 
the  wagon  road  skirting  the  mesa  foot.  At  an 
agreed-upon  signal,  the  two  detachments  were  to 
close  in  upon  the  company  buildings  in  the  con- 
struction camp,  trusting  to  the  surprise  and  the 
attack  from  opposite  directions  to  overcome  any 
disparity  in  numbers. 

At  Smith's  urgings,  Starbuck  went  with  the 
party  which  crossed  by  way  of  the  railroad  trestle, 
Smith    himself    accompanying    the    sheriff's    de- 

422 


Freedom 

tachment.  With  the  horses  left  behind  under 
guard  at  the  trestle  head,  the  up-river  approach 
was  made  by  both  parties  simultaneously,  though 
in  the  darkness,  and  with  the  breadth  of  the  river 
intervening,  neither  could  see  the  movements  of 
the  other.  Smith  kept  his  place  beside  Harding, 
and  to  the  sheriff's  query  he  answered  that  he 
was  unarmed. 

"You've  got  a  nerve,"  was  all  the  comment 
Harding  made,  and  at  that  they  topped  the 
slight  elevation  and  came  among  the  stone  debris 
in  the  north-side  quarries. 

From  the  quarry  cutting  the  view  struck  out 
by  the  camp  mastheads  was  unobstructed.  The 
dam  and  the  uncompleted  power-house,  still 
figuring  to  the  eye  as  skeleton  masses  of  form 
timbering,  lay  just  below  them,  and  on  the  hither 
side  the  flooding  torrent  thundered  through  the 
spillway  gates,  which  had  been  opened  to  their 
fullest  capacity.  Between  the  quarry  and  the 
northern  dam-head  ran  the  smooth  concreted 
channel  of  the  main  ditch  canal,  with  the  water 
in  the  reservoir  lake  still  lapping  several  feet 
below  the  level  of  its  entrance  to  give  assurance 
that,  until  the  spillways  should  be  closed,  the 
charter-saving  stream  would  never  pour  through 
the  canal. 

423 


The  Real  Man 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  river  the  dam-head 
and  the  camp  street  were  deserted,  but  there 
were  lights  in  the  commissary,  in  the  office  shack, 
and  in  Blue  Pete  Simms's  canteen  doggery.  From 
the  latter  quarter  sounds  of  revelry  rose  above 
the  spillway  thunderings,  and  now  and  again  a 
drunken  figure  lurched  through  the  open  door 
to  make  its  way  uncertainly  toward  the  rank  of 
bunk-houses. 

Harding  was  staring  into  the  farther  nimbus 
of  the  electric  rays,  trying  to  pick  up  some  sign 
of  the  other  half  of  his  posse,  when  Smith  made 
a  suggestion. 

"Both  of  your  parties  will  have  the  workmen's 
bunk-houses  in  range,  Mr.  Harding,  and  we 
mustn't  forget  that  Colonel  Baldwin  and  Wil- 
liams are  prisoners  in  the  timekeeper's  shack. 
If  the  guns  have  to  be  used " 

"There  won't  be  any  wild  shooting,  of  the 
kind  you're  thinking  of,"  returned  the  sheriff 
grimly.  "There  ain't  a  single  man  in  this  posse 
that  can't  hit  what  he  aims  at,  nine  times  out  o' 
ten.  But  here's  hopin'  we  can  gather  'em  in 
without  the  guns.    If  they  ain't  lookin'  for  us " 

The  interruption  was  the  whining  song  of  a 
jacketed  bullet  passing  overhead,  followed  by 
the  crack  of  a  rifle.     "Down,   boys!"   said  the 

424 


Freedom 

sheriff  softly,  setting  the  example  by  sliding  into 
the  ready-made  trench  afforded  by  the  dry  ditch 
of  the  outlet  canal;  and  as  he  said  it  a  sharp 
fusillade  broke  out,  with  fire  spurtings  from  the 
commissary  building  and  others  from  the  mesa 
beyond  to  show  that  the  surprise  was  balked  in 
both  directions. 

"They  must  have  had  scouts  out,"  was  Smith's 
word  to  the  sheriff,  who  was  cautiously  recon- 
noitring the  newly  developed  situation  from 
the  shelter  of  the  canal  trench.  "They  are  evi- 
dently ready  for  us,  and  that  knocks  your  plan 
in  the  head.  Your  men  can't  cross  these  stagings 
under  fire." 

"Your  'wops'  are  all  right,  anyway,"  said 
Harding.  "They're  pouring  out  of  the  bunk- 
houses  and  that  saloon  over  there  and  taking 
to  the  hills  like  a  flock  o'  scared  chickens."  Then 
to  his  men:  "Scatter  out,  boys,  and  get  the 
range  on  that  commissary  shed.  That's  where 
most  of  the  rustlers  are  cached." 

Two  days  earlier,  two  hours  earlier,  perhaps, 
Smith  would  have  begged  a  weapon  and  flung 
himself  into  the  fray  with  blood  lust  blinding 
him  to  everything  save  the  battle  demands  of 
the  moment.  But  now  the  final  mile-stone  in  the 
long  road  of  his  metamorphosis  had  been  passed 

425 


The  Real  Man 

and  the   darksome  valley  of  elemental   passions 
was  left  behind. 

"Hold  up  a  minute,  for  God's  sake  !"  he  pleaded 
hastily.  "We've  got  to  give  them  a  show,  Har- 
ding!  The  chances  are  that  every  man  in  that 
commissary  believes  that  M'Graw  has  the  law  on 
his  side — and  we  are  not  sure  that  he  hasn't. 
Anyway,  they  don't  know  that  they  are  trying 
to  stand  off  a  sheriff's  posse  !" 

Harding's  chuckle  was  sardonic.  "You  mean 
that  we'd  ought  to  go  over  yonder  and  read  the 
riot  act  to  'em  first  ?  That  might  do  back  in 
the  country  where  you  came  from.  But  the  man 
that  can  get  into  that  camp  over  there  with  the 
serving  papers  now  'd  have  to  be  armor-plated, 
I  reckon." 

"Just  the  same,  we've  got  to  give  them  their 
chance!"  Smith  insisted  doggedly.  "We  can't 
stand  for  any  unnecessary  bloodshed — /  won't 
stand  for  it !" 

Harding  shrugged  his  heavy  shoulders.  "One 
round  into  that  sheet-iron  commissary  shack'll 
bring  'em  to  time — and  nothing  else  will.  I 
hain't  got  any  men  to  throw  away  on  the  dew- 
dabs  and  furbelows." 

Smith  sprang  up  and  held  out  his  hand. 

"You    have    at    least  one  man   that  you  can 
426 


Freedom 

spare,  Mr.  Harding,"  he  snapped.  "Give  me 
those  papers.     I'll  go  over  and  serve  them." 

At  this  the  big  sheriff  promptly  lost  his  temper. 

"You  blamed  fool!"  he  burst  out.  "You'd 
be  dog-meat  before  you  could  get  ten  feet  away 
from  this  ditch  !" 

"Never  mind:  give  me  those  papers.  I'm  not 
going  to  stand  by  quietly  and  see  a  lot  of  men 
shot  down  on  the  chance  of  a  misunderstanding !" 

"Take  'em,  then!"  rasped  Harding,  meaning 
nothing  more  than  the  calling  of  a  foolish  theorist's 
bluff. 

Smith  caught  at  the  warrants,  and  before  any- 
body could  stop  him  he  was  down  upon  the 
stagings,  swinging  himself  from  bent  to  bent 
through  a  storm  of  bullets  coming,  not  from  the 
commissary,  but  from  the  saloon  shack  on  the 
opposite  bank — a  whistling  shower  of  lead  that 
made  every  man  in  the  sheriff's  party  duck  to 
cover. 

How  the  volunteer  process-server  ever  lived 
to  get  across  the  bridge  of  death  no  man  might 
know.  Thrice  in  the  half-minute  dash  he  was  hit; 
yet  there  was  life  enough  left  to  carry  him  stum- 
bling across  the  last  of  the  staging  bents;  to  send 
him  reeling  up  the  runway  at  the  end  and  across 
the  working  yard  to  the  door  of  the  commissary, 

427 


The  Real  Man 

waving  the  folded  papers  like  an  inadequate  flag 
of  truce  as  he  fell  on  the  door-step. 

After  that,  all  things  were  curiously  hazy  and 
undefined  for  him;  blind  clamor  coming  and 
going  as  the  noise  of  a  train  to  a  dozing  traveller 
when  the  car  doors  are  opened  and  closed.  There 
was  the  tumult  of  a  fierce  battle  being  waged  over 
him;  a  deafening  rifle  fire  and  the  spat-spat  of 
bullets  puncturing  the  sheet-iron  walls  of  the 
commissary.  In  the  midst  of  it  he  lost  his  hold 
upon  the  realities,  and  when  he  got  it  again  the 
warlike  clamor  was  stilled  and  Starbuck  was 
kneeling  beside  him,  trying,  apparently,  to  de- 
prive him  of  his  clothes  with  the  reckless  slashings 
of  a  knife. 

Protesting  feebly  and  trying  to  rise,  he  saw  the 
working  yard  filled  with  armed  men  and  the  re- 
turning throng  of  laborers;  saw  Colonel  Bald- 
win and  Williams  talking  excitedly  to  the  sheriff; 
then  he  caught  the  eye  of  the  engineer  and  beck- 
oned eagerly  with  his  one  available  hand. 

"Hold  still,  until  I  can  find  out  how  dead  you 
are!"  gritted  the  rough-and-ready  surgeon  who 
was  plying  the  clothes-ripping  knife.  But  when 
Williams  came  and  bent  down  to  listen,  Smith 
found  a  voice,  shrill  and  strident  and  so  little 
like  his  own  that  he  scarcely  recognized  it. 

428 


Freedom 

"Call  'em  out — call  the  men  out  and  start  the 
gate  machinery  ! "  he  panted  in  the  queer,  whistling 
voice  which  was,  and  was  not,  his  own.  "Pos- 
sess— possession  is  nine  points  of  the  law — that's 
what  Judge  Warner  said:  the  spillways,  Bartley — 
shut  'em  quick !" 

"The  men  are  on  the  job  and  the  machinery 
is  starting  right  now,"  said  Williams  gently. 
"Don't  you  hear  it?"  And  then  to  Starbuck: 
"For  Heaven's  sake,  do  something  for  him,  Billy — 
anything  to  keep  him  with  us  until  a  doctor  can 
get  here !" 

Smith  felt  himself  smiling  foolishly. 

"I  don't  need  any  doctor,  Bartley;  what  I  need 
is  a  new  ego:  then  I'd  stand  some  sha — some 
chance  of  finding — "he  looked  up  appealingly  at 
Starbuck — "what  is  it  that  I'd  stand  some  chance 
of  finding,  Billy  ?    I — I  can't  seem  to  remember." 

Williams  turned  his  face  away  and  Starbuck 
tightened  his  benumbing  grip  upon  the  severed 
artery  in  the  bared  arm  from  which  he  had  cut 
the  sleeve.  Smith  seemed  to  be  going  off  again, 
but  he  suddenly  opened  his  eyes  and  pointed 
frantically  with  a  finger  of  the  one  serviceable 
hand.  "Catch  him!  catch  him!"  he  shrilled. 
"It's  Boogerfield,  and  he's  going  to  dy-dynamite 
the  dam  !" 

429 


The  Real  Man 

Clinging  to  consciousness  with  a  grip  that  not 
even  the  blood  loss  could  break,  Smith  saw  Wil- 
liams spring  to  his  feet  and  give  the  alarm;  saw 
three  or  four  of  the  sheriff's  men  drop  their 
weapons  and  hurl  themselves  upon  another  man 
who  was  trying  to  make  his  way  unnoticed  to  the 
stagings  with  a  box  of  dynamite  on  his  shoulder. 
Then  he  felt  the  foolish  smile  coming  again  when 
he  looked  up  at  Starbuck. 

"Don't  let  them  hurt  him,  Billy;  him  nor 
Simms  nor  Lanterby,  nor  that  other  one — the 
short-hand  man — I — I  can't  remember  his  name. 
They're  just  poor  tools;  and  we've  got  to — to 
i fight  without  hating,  and — and — "  foolish  wit- 
lessness  was  enveloping  him  again  like  a  cling- 
ing garment  and  he  made  a  masterful  effort  to 
throw  it  off.  "Tell  the  little  girl — tell  her — you 
know  what  to  tell  her,  Billy;  about  what  I  tried 
to  do.  Harding  said  I'd  get  killed,  but  I  re- 
membered what  she  said,  and  I  didn't  care. 
Tell  her  I  said  that  that  one  minute  was  worth 
living  for — worth  all  it  cost." 

The  raucous  blast  of  a  freak  auto  horn  ripped 
into  the  growling  murmur  of  the  gate  machinery, 
and  a  dust-covered  car  pulled  up  in  front  of  the 
commissary.  Out  of  it  sprang  first  the  doctor 
with   his  instrument  bag,   and,  closely  following 

430 


Catch  him!  catch  him!"  he  shrilled.     "It's  Boogerfield, 
and  he's  going  to  dy-dynamite  the  dam!" 


Freedom 

him,  two  plain-clothes  men  and  a  Brewster  police 
captain  in  uniform.  Smith  looked  up  and  under- 
stood. 

"They're  just — a  little — too  late,  Billy,  don't 
you  think?"  he  quavered  weakly.  "I  guess — I 
guess  I've  fooled  them,  after  all."  And  therewith 
he  closed  his  eyes  wearily  upon  all  his  troubles 
and  triumphings. 


431 


XXXIII 

In  Sunrise  Gulch 

WILLIAM  STARBUCK  drew  the  surgeon 
aside  after  the  first  aid  had  been  rendered, 
and  Smith,  still  unconscious,  had  been  carried 
from  the  makeshift  operating-table  in  the  com- 
missary to  Williams's  cot  in  the  office  shack. 

"How  about  it,  Doc?"  asked  the  mine  owner 
bluntly. 

The  surgeon  shook  his  head  doubtfully. 

"I  can't  say.  The  arm  and  the  shoulder  won't 
kill  him,  but  that  one  in  the  lung  is  pretty  bad; 
and  he  has  lost  a  lot  of  blood." 

"Still,  he  may  pull  through?" 

"He  may — with  good  care  and  nursing.  But 
if  you  want  my  honest  opinion,  I'm  afraid  he 
won't  make  it.  He'll  be  rather  lucky  if  he  doesn't 
make  it,  won't  he  ?" 

Starbuck  remembered  that  the  doctor  had 
come  out  in  the  auto  with  the  police  captain  and 
the  two  plain-clothes  men. 

"Hackerman  has  been  talking?"  he  queried. 

The  surgeon  nodded.    "He  told  me  on  the  way 

432 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

out  that  Smith  was  a  fugitive  from  justice;  that 
he'd  be  likely  to  get  ten  years  or  more  when  they 
took  him  back  East.  If  I  were  in  Smith's  place, 
I'd  rather  pass  out  with  a  bullet  in  my  lung. 
Wouldn't  you?" 

Starbuck  was  frowning  sourly.  "Suppose  you 
make  it  a  case  of  suspended  judgment,  Doc," 
he  suggested.  "The  few  of  us  here  who  know  any- 
thing about  it  are  giving  John  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt.  I've  got  a  few  thousand  dollars  of  my  own 
money  that  says  he  isn't  guilty;  and  if  he  makes 
a  live  of  it,  they'll  have  to  show  me,  and  half  a 
dozen  more  of  us,  before  they  can  send  him  over 
the  road." 

"He  knew  they  were  after  him  ?" 

"Sure  thing;  and  he  had  all  the  chance  he 
needed  to  make  his  get-away.  He  wouldn't  take 
it;  thought  he  owed  a  duty  to  the  High  Line 
stockholders.  He's  a  man  to  tie  to,  Doc.  He 
was  shot  while  he  was  trying  to  get  between  and 
stop  the  war  and  keep  others  from  getting  killed." 

"It's  a  pity,"  said  the  surgeon,  glancing  across 
at  the  police  captain  to  whom  Colonel  Baldwin 
was  appealing.  "They'll  put  him  in  the  hospital 
cell  at  the  jail,  and  that  will  cost  him  whatever 
slender  chance  he  might  otherwise  have  to  pull 
through." 

433 


The  Real  Man 

Starbuck  looked  up  quickly.  "Tell  'em  he  can't 
be  moved,  Doc  Dan,"  he  urged  suddenly.  And 
then:  "You're  Dick  Maxwell's  family  physician, 
and  Colonel  Dexter's,  and  mine.  Surely  you  can 
do  that  much  for  us  ?" 

"I  can,  and  I  will,"  said  the  surgeon  promptly, 
and  then  he  went  to  join  Baldwin  and  the  police 
captain,  who  were  still  arguing.  What  he  said 
was  brief  and  conclusive;  and  a  little  later,  when 
the  autos  summoned  from  town  by  Sheriff  Har- 
ding came  for  their  lading  of  prisoners,  Smith  was 
left  behind,  with  two  of  M'Graw's  men  who  were 
also  past  moving.  In  the  general  clearing  of  the 
field  Starbuck  and  Williams  stayed  behind  to  care 
for  the  wounded,  and  one  of  the  plain-clothes 
men  remained  to  stand  guard. 


Three  days  after  the  wholesale  arrest  at  the 
dam,  Brewster  gossip  had  fairly  outworn  itself 
telling  and  retelling  the  story  of  how  the  High 
Line  charter  had  been  saved;  of  how  Crawford 
Stanton's  bold  ruse  of  hiring  an  ex-train-robber 
to  impersonate  a  federal-court  officer  had  fallen 
through,  leaving  Stanton  and  his  confederates, 
ruthlessly  abandoned  by  their  unnamed  principals, 
languishing  bailless  in  jail;    of  how   Smith,  the 

434 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

hero  of  all  these  occasions,  was  still  lying  at  the 
point  of  death  in  the  office  shack  at  the  construc- 
tion camp,,  and  David  Kinzie,  once  more  in  keen 
pursuit  of  the  loaves  and  fishes,  was  combing  the 
market  for  odd  shares  of  the  stock  which  was  now 
climbing  swiftly  out  of  reach.  But  at  this  climax 
of  exhaustion — or  satiety — came  a  distinctly  new 
set  of  thrills,  more  titillating,  if  possible,  than  all 
the  others  combined. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  the  third  day  that 
the  Herald  announced  the  return  of  Mr.  Josiah 
Richlander  from  the  Topaz;  and  in  the  mar- 
riage notices  of  the  same  issue  the  breakfast- 
table  readers  of  the  newspapers  learned  that  the 
multimillionaire's  daughter  had  been  privately 
married  the  previous  evening  to  Mr.  Tucker 
Jibbey.  Two  mining  speculators,  who  had  al- 
ready made  Mr.  Jibbey's  acquaintance,  were 
chuckling  over  the  news  in  the  Hophra  House 
grill  when  a  third  late  breakfaster,  a  man  who 
had  been  sharing  Stanton's  office  space  as  a  bro- 
ker in  improved  ranch  lands,  came  in  to  join 
them. 

"What's  the  joke?"  inquired  the  newcomer; 
and  when  he  was  shown  the  marriage  item  he 
nodded  gravely.  "That's  all  right;  but  the  Herald 
man  didn't  get  the  full  flavor  of  it.    It  was  a  sort 

435 


The  Real  Man 

of  runaway  match,  it  seems;  the  fond  parent 
wasn't  invited  or  consulted.  The  boys  in  the 
lobby  tell  me  that  the  old  man  had  a  fit  when  he 
came  in  this  morning  and  a  Herald  reporter  showed 
him  that  notice  and  asked  for  more  dope  on  the 
subject." 

"I  don't  see  that  the  fond  parent  has  any  kick 
coming,"  said  the  one  who  had  sold  Jibbey  a 
promising  prospect  hole  on  Topaz  Mountain  two 
days  earlier.  "The  young  fellow's  got  all  kinds 
of  money." 

"  I  know,"  the  land  broker  put  in.  "  But  they're 
whispering  it  around  that  Mr.  Richlander  had 
other  plans  for  his  daughter.  They  also  say  that 
Jibbey  wouldn't  stay  to  face  the  music;  that  he 
left  on  the  midnight  train  last  night  a  few  hours 
after  the  wedding,  so  as  not  to  be  among  those 
present  when  the  old  man  should  blow  in." 

"What  ?" — in  a  chorus  of  two — "left  his  wife  ?" 

"That's  what  they  say.  But  that's  only  one 
of  the  new  and  startling  things  that  isn't  in  the 
morning  papers.  Have  you  heard  about  Smith  ? — 
or  haven't  you  been  up  long  enough  yet?" 

"I  heard  yesterday  that  he  was  beginning  to 
mend,"  replied  the  breakfaster  on  the  left;  the 
one  who  had  ordered  bacon  and  eggs,  with  the 
bacon  cooked  to  a  cinder. 

436 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

"You're  out  of  date,"  this  from  the  dealer  in 
ranches.  "You  know  the  story  that  was  going 
around  about  his  being  an  escaped  convict,  or 
something  of  that  sort?  It  gets  its  'local  color* 
this  morning.  There's  a  sheriff  here  from  back 
East  somewhere — came  in  on  the  early  train; 
name's  Macauley,  and  he's  got  the  requisition 
papers.    But  Smith's  fooled  him  good  and  plenty." 

Again  the  chorus  united  in  an  eager  query. 

"How?" 

"He  died  last  night — a  little  past  midnight. 
They  say  they're  going  to  bury  him  out  at  the 
dam — on  the  job  that  he  pulled  through  and 
stood  on  its  feet.  One  of  Williams's  quarrymen 
drifted  in  with  the  story  just  a  little  while  ago. 
I'm  here  to  bet  you  even  money  that  the  whole 
town  goes  to  the  funeral." 

"Great  gosh  !"  said  the  man  who  was  crunching 
the  burnt  bacon.  "Say,  that's  tough,  Bixby !  I 
don't  care  what  he'd  run  away  from  back  East; 
he  was  a  man,  right.  Harding  has  been  telling 
everybody  how  Smith  wouldn't  let  the  posse  open 
fire  on  that  gang  of  hold-ups  last  Friday  night; 
how  he  chased  across  on  the  dam  stagings  alone 
and  unarmed  to  try  to  serve  the  warrants  on  'em 
and  make  'em  stop  firing.  It  was  glorious,  but 
it  wasn't  war." 

437 


The  Real  Man 

To  this  the  other  mining  man  added  a  hard 
word.  "Dead,"  he  gritted;  "and  only  a  few- 
hours  earlier  the  girl  had  taken  snap  judgment 
on  him  and  married  somebody  else !  That's  the 
woman  of  it !" 

"Oh,  hold  on,  Stryker,"  the  ranch  broker  pro- 
tested. "Don't  you  get  too  fierce  about  that. 
There  are  two  strings  to  that  bow  and  the  longest 
and  sorriest  one  runs  out  to  Colonel  Baldwin's 
place  on  Little  Creek,  I'm  thinking.  The  Rich- 
lander  business  was  only  an  incident.  Stanton 
told  me  that  much." 

As  the  event  proved,  the  seller  of  ranch  lands 
would  have  lost  his  bet  on  the  funeral  attendance. 
For  some  unknown  reason  the  notice  of  Smith's 
death  did  not  appear  in  the  afternoon  papers, 
and  only  a  few  people  went  out  in  autos  to  see 
the  coffin  lowered  by  Williams's  workmen  in- 
to a  grave  on  the  mesa  behind  the  construction 
camp;  a  grave  among  others  where  the  victims 
of  an  early  industrial  accident  at  the  dam  had 
been  buried.  Those  who  went  out  from  town 
came  back  rather  scandalized.  There  had  been 
a  most  hard-hearted  lack  of  the  common  formali- 
ties, they  said;  a  cheap  coffin,  no  minister,  no 
mourners,  not  even  the  poor  fellow's  business 
associates  in  the  company  he  had  fought  so  hard 

438 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

to  save  from  defeat  and  extinction.  It  was  a 
shame ! 

With  this  report  passing  from  lip  to  lip  in 
Brewster,  another  bit  of  gossip  to  the  effect  that 
Starbuck  and  Stillings  had  gone  East  with  the 
disappointed  sheriff,  "to  clear  Smith's  memory," 
as  the  street-talk  had  it,  called  forth  no  little 
comment  derogatory.  As  it  chanced,  the  two 
mining  speculators  and  Bixby,  the  ranch  seller,, 
met  again  in  the  Hophra  House  cafe  at  the  dinner- 
table  on  the  evening  of  the  funeral  day,  and 
Stryker,  the  captious  member  of  the  trio,  was 
loud  in  his  criticisms  of  the  High  Line  people. 

"Yes !"  he  railed;  "a  couple  of  'em  will  go  on 
a  junketing  trip  East  to  'clear  his  memory,'  after 
they've  let  their  'wops'  at  the  dam  bury  him  like 
a  yellow  dog!  I  thought  better  than  that  of 
Billy  Starbuck,  and  a  whole  lot  better  of  Colonel 
Dexter.  And  this  Richlander  woman;  they  say 
she'd  known  him  ever  since  he  and  she  were 
school  kids  together;  she  went  down  and  took 
the  train  with  her  father  just  about  the  time  they 
were  planting  the  poor  devil  among  the  sage- 
brush roots  up  there  on  that  bald  mesa!" 

"I'm  disappointed,  too,"  confessed  the  dealer 
in  improved  ranch  lands.  "I  certainly  thought 
that  if  nobody  else  went,  the  little  girl  from  the 

439 


The  Real  Man 

Baldwin   place  would   be  out  there  to  tell  him 
good-by.     But  she  wasn't." 


Three  weeks  of  the  matchless  August  weather 
had  slipped  by  without  incident  other  than  the 
indictment  by  the  grand  jury  of  Crawford  Stan- 
ton, Barney  M'Graw,  and  a  number  of  others  on 
a  charge  of  conspiracy;  and  Williams,  unmolested 
since  the  night  of  the  grand  battue  in  which  Sheriff 
Harding  had  figured  as  the  master  of  the  hunt, 
had  completed  the  great  ditch  system  and  was 
installing  the  machinery  in  the  lately  finished 
power-house. 

Over  the  hills  from  the  northern  mountain 
boundary  of  the  Timanyoni  a  wandering  pros- 
pector had  come  with  a  vague  tale  of  a  new  strike 
in  Sunrise  Gulch,  a  placer  district  worked  out 
and  abandoned  twenty  years  earlier  in  the  height 
of  the  Red  Butte  excitement.  Questioned  closely, 
the  tale-bringer  confessed  that  he  had  no  proof 
positive  of  the  strike;  but  in  the  hills  he  had 
found  a  well-worn  trail,  lately  used,  leading  to 
the  old  camp,  and  from  one  of  the  deserted  cabins 
in  the  gulch  he  had  seen  smoke  arising. 

As  to  the  fact  of  the  trail  the  wandering  tale- 
bearer was  not  at  fault.     On  the  most  perfect  of 

440 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

the  late-in-August  mornings  a  young  woman, 
clad  in  serviceable  khaki,  and  keeping  her  cow- 
boy Stetson  and  buff  top-boots  in  good  counte- 
nance by  riding  astride  in  a  man's  saddle,  was 
pushing  her  mount  up  the  trail  toward  Sunrise 
Gulch.  From  the  top  of  a  little  rise  the  abandoned 
camp  came  into  view,  its  heaps  of  worked-over 
gravel  sprouting  thickly  with  the  wild  growth  of 
twenty  years,  and  its  crumbling  shacks,  only  one 
of  which  seemed  to  have  survived  in  habitable 
entirety,  scattered   among  the  firs  of  the  gulch. 

At  the  top  of  the  rise  the  horsewoman  drew 
rein  and  shaded  her  eyes  with  a  gauntleted  hand. 
On  a  bench  beside  the  door  of  the  single  tenanted 
cabin  a  man  was  sitting,  and  she  saw  him  stand 
to  answer  her  hand-wave.  A  few  minutes  later 
the  man,  a  gaunt  young  fellow  with  one  arm  in  a 
sling  and  the  pallor  of  a  long  confinement  whiten- 
ing his  face  and  hands,  was  trying  to  help  the 
horsewoman  to  dismount  in  the  cabin  dooryard, 
but  she  pushed  him  aside  and  swung  out  of  the 
saddle  unaided,  laughing  at  him  out  of  a  pair  of 
slate-gray  eyes  and  saying:  "How  often  have  I 
got  to  tell  you  that  you  simply  cant  help  a  woman 
out  of  a  man's  saddle  ?" 

The  man  smiled  at  that. 

"It's  automatic,"  he  returned.  "I  shall  never 
441 


The  Real  Man 

get  over  wanting  to  help  you,  I  guess.  Have  you 
come  to  tell  me  that  I  can  go  ?" 

Flinging  the  bridle-reins  over  the  head  of  the 
wiry  little  cow-pony  which  was  thus  left  free  to 
crop  the  short,  sweet  grass  of  the  creek  valley, 
the  young  woman  led  the  man  to  the  house  bench 
and  made  him  sit  down. 

"You  are  frightfully  anxious  to  go  and  commit 
suicide,  aren't  you?"  she  teased,  sitting  beside 
him.  "Every  time  I  come  it's  always  the  same 
thing:    'When  can  I  go?'    You're  not  well  yet." 

"I'm  well  enough  to  do  what  I've  got  to  do, 
Corona;  and  until  it's  done.  .  .  .  Besides,  there 
is  Jibbey." 

"Where  is  Mr.  Jibbey  this  morning?" 

"He  has  gone  up  the  creek,  fishing.  I  made 
him  go.  If  I  didn't  take  a  club  to  him  now  and 
then  he'd  hang  over  me  all  the  time.  There 
never  was  another  man  like  him,  Corona.  And 
at  home  we  used  to  call  him  'the  black  sheep' 
and  'the  failure,'  and  cross  the  street  to  dodge 
him  when  he'd  been  drinking  too  much  !" 

"He  says  you've  made  a  man  of  him;  that  you 
saved  his  life  when  you  had  every  reason  not  to. 
You  never  told  me  that,  John." 

"No;  I  didn't  mean  to  tell  any  one.  But  to 
think  of  his  coming  out  here  to  nurse  me,  leaving 

442 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

Verda  on  the  very  night  he  married  her !  A 
brother  of  my  own  blood  wouldn't  have  done 
it." 

The  young  woman  was  looking  up  with  a 
shrewd  little  smile.  "Maybe  the  blood  brother 
would  do  even  that,  if  you  had  just  made  it 
possible  for  him  to  marry  the  girl  he'd  set  his 
heart  on,  John." 

"Piffle  {"growled  the  man.  And  then:  "Hasn't 
the  time  come  when  you  can  tell  me  a  little  more 
about  what  happened  to  me  after  the  doctor  put 
me  to  sleep  that  night  at  the  dam  ?" 

"Yes.  The  only  reason  you  haven't  been  told 
was  because  we  didn't  want  you  to  worry;  we 
wanted  you  to  have  a  chance  to  get  well  and 
strong  again." 

The  man's  eyes  filled  suddenly,  and  he  took 
no  shame.  He  was  still  shaky  enough  in  nerve 
and  muscle  to  excuse  it.  "Nobody  ever  had 
such  friends,  Corona,"  he  said.  "You  all  knew 
I'd  have  to  go  back  to  Lawrenceville  and  fight 
it  out,  and  you  didn't  want  me  to  go  handicapped 
and  half-dead.  But  how  did  they  come  to  let 
you  take  me  away  ?  I've  known  Macauley  ever 
since  I  was  in  knickers.  He  is  not  the  man  to 
take  any  chances." 

The    young    woman's    laugh    was    soundless. 

443 


The  Real  Man 

"Mr.  Macauley  wasn't  asked.  He  thinks  you 
are  dead,"  she  said. 

"What!" 

"It's  so.  You  were  not  the  only  one  wounded 
in  the  fight  at  the  dam.  There  were  two  others — 
two  of  M'Graw's  men.  Three  days  later,  just  as 
Colonel-daddy  and  Billy  Starbuck  were  getting 
ready  to  steal  you  away,  one  of  the  others  died. 
In  some  way  the  report  got  out  that  you  were 
the  one  who  died,  and  that  made  everything  quite 
easy.  The  report  has  never  been  contradicted, 
and  when  Mr.  Macauley  reached  Brewster  the 
police  people  told  him  that  he  was  too  late." 

"Good  heavens  !  Does  everybody  in  Brewster 
think  I'm  dead?" 

"Nearly  everybody.  But  you  needn't  look 
so  horrified.  You're  not  dead,  you  know;  and 
there  were  no  obituaries  in  the  newspapers,  or 
anything  like  that." 

The  man  got  upon  his  feet  rather  unsteadily. 

"That's  the  limit,"  he  said  definitively.  "I'm 
a  man  now,  Corona;  too  much  of  a  man,  I  hope, 
to  hide  behind  another  man's  grave.  I'm  going 
back  to  Brewster,  to-day  I" 

The  young  woman  made  a  quaint  little  grimace 
at  him.  "How  are  you  going  to  get  there  ?"  she 
asked.  "It's  twenty  miles,  and  the  walking  is 
awfully  bad — in  spots." 

444 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

"But  I  must  go.  Can't  you  see  what  every- 
body will  say  of  me  ? — that  I  was  too  cowardly 
to  face  the  music  when  my  time  came  ?  Nobody 
will  believe  that  I  wasn't  a  consenting  party  to 
this  hide-away  I" 

"Sit  down,"  she  commanded  calmly;  and 
when  he  obeyed :  "  From  day  to  day,  since  I  began 
coming  out  here,  John,  I've  been  trying  to  re- 
discover the  man  whom  I  met  just  once,  one 
evening  over  a  year  ago,  at  Cousin  Adda's  house 
in  Guthrieville:   I  can't  find  him — he's  gone." 

"Corona!"  he  said.  "Then  you  recognized 
me?" 

"Not  at  first.  But  after  a  while  little  things 
began  to  come  back;  and  what  you  told  me — 
about  Miss  Richlander,  you  know,  and  the  hint 
you  gave  me  of  your  trouble — did  the  rest." 

"Then  you  knew — or  you  thought — I  was  a 
criminal  ?" 

She  nodded,  and  her  gaze  was  resting  upon  the 
near-by  gravel  heaps.  "Cousin  Adda  wrote  me. 
But  that  made  no  difference.  I  didn't  know 
whether  you  had  done  the  things  they  said  you 
had,  or  not.  What  I  did  know  was  that  you  had 
broken  your  shackles  in  some  way  and  were  try- 
ing to  get  free.    You  were,  weren't  you  ?" 

"I  suppose  so;  in  some  blind  fashion.  But  it 
is  you  who  have  set  me  free,  Corona.     It  began 

445 


The  Real  Man 

that  night  in  Guthrieville  when  I  stole  one  of 
your  gloves;  it  wasn't  anything  you  said;  it 
was  what  you  so  evidently  believed  and  lived. 
And  out  here:  I  was  simply  a  raw  savage  when 
you  first  saw  me.  I  had  tumbled  headlong  into 
the  abyss  of  the  new  and  the  elemental,  and  if  I 
am  trying  to  scramble  out  now  on  the  side  of 
honor  and  clean  manhood,  it  is  chiefly  because 
you  have  shown  me  the  way." 

"When  did  I  ever,  John  ?" — with  an  up-glance 
of  the  gray  eyes  that  was  almost  wistful. 

"Always;  and  with  a  wisdom  that  makes  me 
almost  afraid  of  you.  For  example,  there  was 
the  night  when  I  was  fairly  on  the  edge  of  let- 
ting Jibbey  stay  in  the  mine  and  go  mad  if  he 
wanted  to:  you  lashed  me  with  the  one  word 
that  made  me  save  his  life  instead  of  taking  it. 
How  did  you  know  that  was  the  one  word  to 
say?" 

"How  do  we  know  anything?"  she  inquired 
softly.  "The  moment  brings  its  own  inspiration. 
It  broke  my  heart  to  see  what  you  could  be,  and 
to  think  that  you  might  not  be  it,  after  all.  But 
I  came  out  here  this  morning  to  talk  about  some- 
thing else.  What  are  you  going  to  do  when  you 
are  able  to  leave  Sunrise  Gulch  ?" 

"The  one  straightforward  thing  there  is  for 
446 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

me  to  do.  I  shall  go  back  to  Lawrenceville  and 
take  my  medicine." 

"And  after  that?" 

"That  is  for  you  to  say,  Corona.  Would  you 
marry  a  convict  ?" 

"You  are  not  guilty." 

"That  is  neither  here  nor  there.  They  will 
probably  send  me  to  prison,  just  the  same,  and 
the  stigma  will  be  mine  to  wear  for  the  remainder 
of  my  life.  I  can  wear  it  now,  thank  God ! 
But  to  pass  it  on  to  you — and  to  your  children, 
Corona  ...  if  I  could  get  my  own  consent  to 
that,  you  couldn't  get  yours." 

"Yes,  I  could,  John;  I  got  it  the  first  time 
Colonel-daddy  brought  me  out  here  and  let  me 
see  you.  You  were  out  of  your  head,  and  you 
thought  you  were  talking  to  Billy  Starbuck — in 
the  automobile  on  the  night  when  you  were  going 
with  him  to  the  fight  at  the  dam.  It  made  me  go 
down  on  my  two  knees,  John,  and  kiss  your  poor, 
hot  hands." 

He  slipped  his  one  good  arm  around  her  and 
drew  her  close. 

"Now  I  can  go  back  like  a  man  and  fight  it 
through  to  the  end,"  he  exulted  soberly.  "Jibbey 
will  take  me;  I  know  he  is  wearing  himself  out 
trying  to  make  me  believe  that  he  can  wait,  and 

447 


The  Real  Man 

that  Verda  understands,  though  he  won't  admit 
it.  And  when  it  is  all  over,  when  they  have  done 
their  worst  to  me " 

With  a  quick  little  twist  she  broke  away  from 
the  encircling  arm. 

"John,  dear,"  she  said,  and  her  voice  was 
trembling  between  a  laugh  and  a  sob,  "I'm  the 
wickedest,  wickedest  woman  that  ever  lived  and 
breathed — and  the  happiest !  I  knew  what  you 
would  do,  but  I  couldn't  resist  the  temptation 
to  make  you  say  it.  Listen :  this  morning  Colonel- 
daddy  got  a  night-letter  from  Billy  Starbuck. 
You  have  been  wondering  why  Billy  never  came 
out  here  to  see  you — it  was  because  he  and  Mr. 
Stillings  have  been  in  Lawrenceville,  trying  to 
clear  you.  They  are  there  now,  and  the  wire  says 
that  Watrous  Dunham  has  been  arrested  and 
that  he  has  broken  down  and  confessed.  You 
are  a  free  man,  John;   you " 

The  grass-cropping  pony  had  widened  its  circle 
by  a  full  yard,  and  the  westward- pointing  shad- 
ows of  the  firs  were  growing  shorter  and  more 
clearly  defined  as  the  August  sun  swung  higher 
over  the  summits  of  the  eastern  Timanyonis. 
For  the  two  on  the  house  bench,  time,  having 
all  its  interspaces  filled  with  beatific  silences,  had 
no  measure  that  was  worth  recording.     In  one  of 

448 


In  Sunrise  Gulch 

the  more  coherent  intervals  it  was  the  man  who 
said: 

"Some  things  in  this  world  are  very  wonderful, 
Corona.  We  call  them  happenings,  and  try  to 
account  for  them  as  we  may  by  the  laws  of  chance. 
Was  it  chance  that  threw  us  together  at  your 
cousin's  house  in  Guthrieville  a  year  ago  last 
June  ?" 

She  laughed  happily.  "I  suppose  it  was — 
though  I'd  like  to  be  romantic  enough  to  believe 
that  it  wasn't." 

"Debritt  would  say  that  it  was  the  Absolute 
Ego,"  he  said,  half  musingly. 

"And  who  is  Mr.  Debritt?" 

"He  is  the  man  I  dined  with  on  my  last  evening 
in  Lawrenceville.  He  had  been  joking  me  about 
my  various  little  smugnesses — good  job,  good 
clothes,  easy  life,  and  all  that,  and  he  wound 
up  by  warning  me  to  watch  out  for  the  Absolute 
Ego." 

"What  is  the  Absolute  Ego?"  she  asked 
dutifully. 

John  Montague  Smith,  with  his  curling  yellow 
beard  three  weeks  untrimmed,  with  his  clothes 
dressing  the  part  of  a  neglected  camper,  and  with 
a  steel-jacketed  bullet  trying  to  encyst  itself  under 
his  right  shoulder-blade,  grinned  exultantly. 

449 


The  Real  Man 

"Debritt  didn't  know,  himself;  but  I  know 
now:  it's  the  primitive  man-soul;  the  'I'  that 
is  able  to  refuse  to  be  bound  down  and  tied 
by  environment  or  habit  or  petty  conventions, 
or  any  of  the  things  we  misname  'limitations/ 
It's  asleep  in  most  of  us;  it  was  asleep  in  me. 
You  made  it  sit  up  and  rub  its  eyes  for  a  minute 
or  two  that  evening  in  Guthrieville,  but  it  dozed 
off  again,  and  there  had  to  be  an  earthquake  at 
the  last  to  shake  it  alive.  Do  you  know  the  first 
thing  it  did  when  it  took  hold  and  began  to  drive  ?" 

"No." 

"Here  is  where  the  law  of  chances  falls  to 
pieces,  Corona.  Without  telling  me  anything 
about  it,  this  newly  emancipated  man-soul  of 
mine  made  a  bee-line  for  the  only  Absolute  Ego 
woman  it  had  ever  known.     And  it  found  her." 

Again  the  young  woman  laughed  happily.  "If 
you  are  going  to  call  me  names,  Ego-man,  you'll 
have  to  make  it  up  to  me  some  other  way,"  she 
said. 

Whereupon,  the  moment  being  strictly  ele- 
mental and  sacred  to  demonstrations  of  the  ab- 
solute, he  did. 

The  End 

450 


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